The Curiosity

by Stephen Kiernan

  Mourning is a mysterious maze. Often I asked myself what should happen next, but there were no obvious avenues. I was infamous in Boston, reviled from the North End to South Station. I knew of no research openings anywhere. I was too ashamed to contact Tolliver at the academy. I’d probably damaged his reputation enough already. In an academic publication I read that Billings might open a lab outside London, to study the Lazarus samples he’d kept. So I e-mailed him a timid greeting, just fishing. He wrote back to say that if the lab opened, if it won funding, if there was a need for someone with my skills, then he might offer me a job, but I would have to understand in advance that at no time could my name be listed among any report’s authors, for obvious reasons. He signed his e-mail your devoted friend, GB.

  Such is devotion in the world of scientific research. Yet I can’t say I was disappointed. Who would want to go back that way? Not when I’m already discredited. Then I learned that the lab in China had hired Billings. Not a month later they reanimated a sardine that remained alive for months. The article lacked detail, but apparently the breakthrough had something to do with oxygen saturation. To me it seemed as if everything that occurred, in China or elsewhere, was happening too late.

  Chloe had two cents to add every day. Her e-mails were condescending, scathing. Yet I could not resist reading every word, letting their poison in. The blame they assigned, the condescension, felt like penance. She urged me to learn something from this whole pathetic mess, Katie-bug. Learn something.

  Well, what have I learned? I mean besides the world’s fickleness, how people turn vicious when they feel tricked, the difference between the wholesome appetite of scientific curiosity and the empty avarice of personal ambition? Something instructive happened, I am certain of it. Something educational took place in the months between that night in the Arctic and that morning on the pier. Yet the lessons remain unclear.

  Maybe this, maybe at least this: when love comes into your life, it calls upon your whole being to be worthy. If you rise to that challenge, it will plant roots and you will blossom. I know. I lived such a love greatly, if briefly, with a fine, rare man. That man taught me the power of noticing, of appreciating, which cannot be unlearned.

  So, rather than follow Jeremiah’s request that I forget him, instead I honor the moment he hugged me in my apartment, when he must have known he was dying, yet he made me promise never to forget his gratitude. What a gift. I have indeed fixed him fast: the most inconsequential gesture, the least word. I savor those memories. I regret nothing.

  Into the crucible of my interior life, Carolyn found an opening. Summer flew past, I prepared to bundle against another fall. Already the morning wind off the harbor had a bite to it. Then one of her yoga friends, principal of the local high school, lamented after class one day that she was losing a biology teacher to maternity leave.

  Without asking, Carolyn volunteered me as a long-term substitute. Then she returned to the inn, stood in my doorway. She did a tree pose, while declaring that she was firing me from the inn.

  After all those years in a lab, so many men but so few women, I knew better than to reject this sisterly generosity.

  On my first day the kids had a quiz, on the components of a plant cell. Their teacher had drawn one as a parting gift, arrows pointing to various features, with blanks for the students to fill.

  A few bent diligently to the page, pencils moving, but many sat still, gazing out the window or staring into space. When I told them to pass the papers forward, one girl immediately began chatting with her neighbor. She had strong features, straight blond hair, very pretty.

  I stood by her desk. “What’s your name, honey?”

  “Victoria.” She tossed her head so her hair swept back.

  “May I please see your lab notebook, Victoria?”

  Most pages were blank. A few had scribbled numbers that I assumed were from in-class projects. The sheets with the most writing primarily contained drawings of field hockey sticks, quite colorful, plus equally artful writing of a boy’s name: Chris.

  “Class dismissed,” I told them, though twenty minutes remained. “That’s it for today.”

  “Awesome,” one of the boys said. As they all hurried off, I shuffled to my desk. There sat my first stack of papers to be graded. Victoria was the last one out the door. I overheard her saying to another girl a single word: “Deadly.”

  The quizzes went into a recycling bin. That afternoon I stayed after school, digging out every microscope in the place. I cleaned them all: wiping the dusty bodies, replacing dead illuminator bulbs, polishing lenses. Early the next morning I borrowed a bucket from the inn, scooping it full from a brackish shallows in the harbor. It felt like someone was watching over my shoulder, my co-conspirator from across the centuries. The bucket grew heavy as I lugged it to school.

  When the students filed in, they noticed the microscopes instantly, made skeptical expressions. Doubt is a fine place to begin. I dipped a slide into the bucket, held it high. “Do you see anything on this piece of glass?”

  Of course they did not, mumbling as much in reply. But I knew how rich that seawater was, how vital with paramecia, flagella, algae. I smiled. “Your assignment is to dip a slide for yourself, put it on your microscope, then draw the most interesting thing you see.”

  At first the students moved like I was forcing them to drink poison, grumbling, not bothering to conceal their scorn. Gradually they formed a line.

  “You too, Victoria.”

  “Oh, right.”

  She came last, chatting with friends the whole time. She held her head away from the bucket as she dipped, as if the water would sting. But I waited. She slid the little glass plate under the microscope’s stage clips, shared one last laugh with the girl at the next lab station, tossed her hair to one side. After she’d exhausted her repertoire of delaying gestures, Victoria lowered her face to the eyepiece.

  At first she squinted. Then she adjusted the focus. Then she stopped fidgeting. A boy across the room needed help with his scope, but when I checked back on her a moment later, Victoria was concentrating on what she saw. After a long stillness, she reached without taking her eye from the lens, and picked up a pencil.

  I heard her whisper one word to her friend: “Cool.”

  When an e-mail from Chloe arrived that night, I deleted it without reading. I wasn’t cutting her off forever, but right then I didn’t need the criticism. Nor would it hurt her for a while to listen to the sound of her own voice.

  A few months later Billings did send me a note about job openings. China desired scientific supremacy so zealously, he explained, officials there would not be particular about my history. Already they were modifying fishing boats to search for hard ice at the poles. Someone would have to command those vessels.

  Of course you’ll need to come clean about everything, he wrote, and explain that it was not a hoax but actually exemplary science. They’re very forgiving, if you have what they need. Besides, you were besotted with love.

  Besotted? I closed his e-mail without replying. Then I went to stand on my back stairs, examining what I felt. Not like I’d thrown away a career, no. More like I had finally relaxed my grip on the reins of a horse I’d proven myself capable of riding, but had never loved. I felt no pangs as it galloped away out of sight.

  So I go now from the inn, each day, across town to the school, walking to work as I did in another lifetime. I stand at the front of the room, black lab tables with sunken sinks, gas nozzles for Bunsen burners, all the bright faces angled up at me, even the sullen ones attending with the corners of their eyes just in case something interesting happens.

  Quickly I became known as an easy A, because I don’t care if my students memorize the facts. All I want is to cultivate their curiosity. Yes, my old friend remains undiminished even now: the simple yearning to know. If these students cannot tell a xylem from a phloem, it will not undul
y handicap their college hopes or impede their careers. But their lives will depend entirely on whether they possess wonder, an eye for beauty. For many people, the unknown is something to fear. Instead I want to give my students the humility to believe that anything they do not understand therefore possesses an elegant magic.

  I anticipate the day when someone brings up my past. Another teacher, a student who searched me online, most likely a parent with some grievance. It’s all but certain to happen; we live in a cynical time. Educated by a wise judge, I will not argue or defend. Thanks to repeatedly watching a video of him that remains online, I have a better reply prepared: We must let our deeds be our ambassadors. Our challenge is to live with all the sincerity that is in our hearts, and hope that those who doubt will come to see the truth.

  At the end of the school year, when I collected everyone’s lab notebooks, I flipped through Victoria’s first. The pages were thick with use. I was amused to see that boy Chris still figured prominently in the margins, the back cover. But the rest was filled with notes, measurements, drawings of accuracy and care.

  “Hm,” I said, though if I am honest, it came out more like a laugh. I had reached her. Curiosity had reached her. Victoria’s progress was plenty significant enough for me.

  The teacher on leave had her baby, yet remains undecided about whether to return next fall. So I begin to have a glimpse of a future, a place I might belong.

  Meanwhile I find solace in knowing that I remained worthy. No, more than that. I feel pride. After all, I loved Jeremiah Rice enough to stand between him and the evil in this world. I loved him enough to let him go.

  But not completely. I smile to think of what I held on to. Most nights I meander this town’s narrow streets, seeing lights on inside the antique houses, envying the occupants their domesticity. Eventually I find myself down on the docks where I held him, where I released him. Some nights it is cloudy there. On others, the moon shines a bright path across the black water. Regardless of weather, I am glad to be there, glad to have kept one thing of Jeremiah’s: small, brown, round.

  It is no mighty totem, no sacred talisman. It is a nothing, really, meaningful only to the one person who knows what it signifies: that he existed, that he loved me in return. Truths as strong as these can be sustained by the humblest of objects. This one hangs on a simple chain, resting above my heart.

  There on the dock I reach up and touch it, three fingers around the rim. What I have left of him. One button.

  Acknowledgments

  In 1992 I first heard James Taylor’s song “Frozen Man,” and it planted the seeds of this novel. In 2010 I shared the idea with my friends Chris Bohjalian and Dana Yeaton. They persuaded me to give it a try. Eighteen years is a slow thawing, and I’m forever grateful for their encouragement.

  I had plenty of other help. Karl Lindholm introduced me to the wonderful world of early baseball, including such books as Where They Ain’t by Burt Solomon, Boston’s Royal Rooters by Peter Nash, and The Boston Red Sox by Milton Cole and Jim Kaplan. Early drafts of this book had many pages of Jeremiah’s baseball enthusiasm; I removed them with reluctance.

  Abby Battis, collections manager at the Lynn Historical Society, and former society president Steve Babbitt, provided century-old maps of the city, property transactions, and The Lynn Album, A Pictorial History by Elizabeth Hope Cushing. The description of a heart’s desire to beat came from a conversation with transplant surgeon Michael Borkon, M.D., of St. Luke’s Mid-America Heart Institute in Kansas City, Missouri.

  Decades ago when I was a junior editor at a daily newspaper, veteran court reporter Mike Donohue coined the phrase “perv du jour” to describe the sex-crime stories he was filing on a nearly daily basis. I borrowed his words for a new meaning; here for you, Mike. This book’s title came from the lovely Emily Day.

  Erastus Carthage’s theories deepened thanks to Dick Teresi’s interview of the late cell scientist Lynn Margulis in Discover (April 2011). Deborah Bergstrom enlarged my knowledge of the effects of rapid freezing on cell chemistry. My walking reconnaissance of Boston occurred in the fine company of Dr. Mark Bronsky.

  A number of people aided this project by reading or listening to early drafts, especially Chris Bohjalian, Nancy Milliken, and Susan Huling. Kate Palmer offered insights on character during every draft, and often provided the faith that kept this project aloft. My sons, in addition to being an inspiration every day, deserve gold stars for patience with a father whose imagined world woke him to write at odd hours, and thus frequently forced them to wait around while he napped on the floor later in the day. I am indebted to my trusted literary agent, Ellen Levine of Trident Media, for finding Jeremiah a happy home at William Morrow. Jennifer Brehl is an excellent editor, striving in the direction of love while curbing Dixon’s excesses. She had sage help from Lorissa Sengara at HarperCollins Canada (gratitude to Iris Tupholme there as well). Thanks to Rich Green at Creative Artists Agency for seeing Jeremiah’s film potential, and to Hutch Parker at 20th Century Fox for excellent plotline suggestions.

  For years my work has benefited from Roberta MacDonald and the farm family owners of the Cabot Cheese Cooperative (who generously supported my efforts to improve end-of-life care), intelligent publicity work by Wendy Knight at Knight & Day Communications, unexpected friendship from Joan Hornig, and timely moral support from Dave Wolk. These people are more than a writer’s allies; they are friends of incalculable value.

  About the Author

  STEPHEN P. KIERNAN is a journalist and a graduate of Middlebury College, with an M.A. from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and an M.F.A. in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has written two works of nonfiction—Last Rights and Authentic Patriotism—that promote better end-of-life care and civic engagement, and his writing and journalism have been recognized with numerous awards, including the Brechner Center’s Freedom of Information Award, the Scripps Howard Award for Distinguished Service to the First Amendment, and the George Polk Award. He lives in Vermont with his two sons. The Curiosity is his first novel, and film rights have been bought by 20th Century Fox.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Also by Stephen P. Kiernan

  Last Rights

  Authentic Patriotism

  Credits

  Cover design by by Mary Schuck

  Cover photograph © by Corbis/www.fotosearch.com

  Grateful acknowledgment is given to Ice Nine Publishing Company for permission to reprint four lines from the Grateful Dead song “Ripple,” lyrics by Robert Hunter, copyright © by Ice Nine Publishing. All rights reserved.

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE CURIOSITY. Copyright © 2013 by Stephen P. Kiernan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN 978-0-06-222106-3

  EPub Edition JULY 2013 ISBN: 9780062221087

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