The Burning Road

by Ann Benson

  And as Alejandro followed Karle on the road north, his heart was in his stomach. It was a bit too heavy for his chest.

  26

  The restaurant where Janie met Myra Ross in the morning occupied the entire top floor of an old warehouse on a side street of the main square.

  Nicely dressed patrons faced off over pastel tablecloths and white china while black-and-white-clad waiters floated from group to group with steaming pots of coffee. The yellow light of morning streamed in through floor-to-ceiling windows and the whole place was resplendent with the sounds and smells of breakfast.

  None of which neutralized the low concerned buzz or the nervous expressions. Worry was in the air.

  Janie came flying in, a little late, and found the curator already installed at a window table.

  “You look a bit rattled, dear,” Myra observed as Janie sat down.

  “I am,” she panted. When she was finally situated and her chair pulled in, she gave Myra a slightly perturbed look. “And I usually hate it when people call me dear,” she said, “but today, I have to admit, it sounds pretty damned good.”

  Myra smiled. “It’s a generational habit, I assure you. So don’t take it too personally. I’ll try to remember to use it sparingly in your case.” She took a sip of her water. “Now, I must say your invitation to breakfast was very unexpected.” She leaned a little closer and said quietly, “You might want to give some thought to how you issue your summonses, though.”

  Janie was almost whispering, though she couldn’t have said why. “I know. It was a little forceful, but please forgive me—things are a little out of whack for me right now.” She took in a deep breath and began a recitation of her latest round of troubles. “Someone burned my house down—”

  The curator clasped her hands together and said, “Dear God! That’s just awful! Is it destroyed—completely?”

  Janie nodded soberly. “And to make matters worse, it happened while I was away on a trip that meant a lot to me, and I had to come back early. I didn’t get to finish the business I went to do.”

  “Well, in view of what happened, it was probably appropriate for you to return. I mean, your home …”

  Janie made no comment. “Anyway, I’m a little leery about discussing much of anything over the phone right now. That’s why I was so abrupt.”

  Myra reached out and gave one of Janie’s hands a reassuring squeeze. “This is just such terrible news—but thank God you weren’t home at the time. You might have died. To live through DR SAM and then die in a fire …”

  “Yeah. Wouldn’t that have been a kicker?”

  “All your things must be gone—how can you just sit here so—calm, and normal? I would be absolutely beside myself.”

  “I’m not calm or normal. Not even close.”

  “And you’re sure it wasn’t an accident—someone actually meant to burn it?”

  “It looks that way. Someone’s been trying very hard to mess things up for me. In every part of my life.”

  “But—why?”

  “Because of some work I’m doing that seems to be striking a nerve. Somewhere. I don’t know where. Whoever is doing this seems to know just what I’m doing and when.”

  She glanced around nervously, a recently acquired habit that was beginning to disturb her. Myra did the same. When their eyes met again, Myra said, “You don’t think you’re being listened to or followed, do you?”

  “Maybe. Funny little things seem to be happening to me all the time. Or maybe I’m just paranoid. I do know one thing, though—I’m about as confused as I’ve ever been.”

  The waiter appeared with coffee. Both Myra and Janie nodded at their cups. When they were refilled, the waiter departed.

  “And then to top it all off, I’ve got these two men all of a sudden.”

  Myra’s eyebrows went up immediately. “Two? Well. I don’t think I can help you with that one.”

  “I don’t know if anyone can.”

  “Oh, I’m sure someone out there knows how to handle two men, but I don’t. One was enough for me. Too much, sometimes. Back when I had men, that is, I mean a man …”

  She seemed to drift into a melancholy place for the briefest moment, and Janie politely waited until the wistful look dissipated before going on. “That situation will work itself out, one way or the other, I’m sure. And it’s not why I asked to see you.”

  The curator jumped immediately to what she thought was the obvious. “Is there some problem with your journal?”

  “No. Nothing’s changed about that. But the journal does relate to why I asked you to meet me.” She sighed wearily and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she said, “I’m in desperate need of some sanity, and this place is … special to me. The last time I took my mother to breakfast it was here.”

  “Then it must hold a lot of memories for you.”

  Janie glanced around again, this time absorbing the warmth of the place, and when she turned back to Myra she felt more balanced. “It does. You can’t imagine how much I miss my mother. I was expecting to have her a lot longer than I did.”

  “I’m sorry,” Myra said. “We’ve all gone through such terrible losses. When I look back on the last few years, I think I’m just very happy to be alive.”

  “I am too.”

  Menus arrived. A new waitress made suggestions and they chose quickly. “I have a favor to ask of you,” Janie said when the waitress was gone.

  Myra sat back in her chair. “Well, you have me curious now,” she said. “But I did assume you were inviting me for some reason other than a great love of my company.”

  Janie managed a small laugh. “I knew this would make me feel better. Your candor is so … refreshing.”

  “That was very gracefully put, considering what you might have said. Please, go on.”

  Janie told her about Abraham Prives’s strange affliction, and as much as she felt comfortable revealing about the mystery that surrounded it. And when the tale was finished, Myra sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, she said, “This is very, very distressing.”

  “It is. And these are just the boys we know about.”

  “Oh, the poor dears, and their poor mothers.”

  “Yes. I personally know only one of the mothers, and she’s being incredibly brave, but it has to be awful for her. I haven’t asked the other—uh—personnel about how the other parents out there are doing, but I imagine it would not be a pretty report.”

  “No, it would not be. It would be full of expressions of disbelief. And horror.”

  “I suspect that’s why I haven’t wanted to hear it.”

  “Is there anything at all that can be done?”

  “We do have people working on it—there’s a young woman who’s quite strong in genetics, an expert really, and she’s spending all her time on this one problem.”

  “This is like Tay-Sachs all over again,” Myra said.

  “Worse, I think.”

  “This woman, the expert, is she a Jew?”

  Kristina’s heritage was not something Janie had ever even bothered to consider—there was so much else to think about regarding the strange young woman. “I’ve never asked her,” she said. “Her last name is Warger. If I had to guess, I’d say her background was Celtic. Sandy hair, blue eyes, very tall and big-boned.”

  “No, it doesn’t sound like she is, although these days you can’t really tell anymore. When I was a girl things were different. We all knew who we were back then. But my point is, what I’m really interested in knowing is if she’s any good.”

  Janie didn’t quite know what to say. “There are always different benchmarks for ‘good’ in situations like this, but I can tell you that she’s brilliant, and innovative, and a clear thinker. She has certain—quirks, but her work seems very thorough.”

  “Because something like this,” Myra went on, “it requires the absolute best available.”

  “Therein lies the problem,” Janie told her, “the one I need your help
for. We’re missing a piece of the puzzle, an important one. Einstein could be doing this work, and if he didn’t have a certain material he’d fail.”

  “Is there a chance you might obtain whatever it is?”

  “We’ve been trying. But we’re not having any success.”

  “This is beginning to sound almost hopeless.”

  “I hate to admit it, but that’s exactly how it’s starting to feel to me.” Janie paused for a moment, as if to gather her thoughts, while in truth she was gathering courage. “Then she and I were working last night, racking our brains over how we were going to solve this problem, and an idea came to me. Actually, a couple of ideas.”

  She took a badly needed sip of water to refresh her mouth, which felt cottony and dry. “We’re looking for a source for a certain small segment of one gene. From a donor—living or dead, it doesn’t matter. The people most likely to carry this gene are Jews. We looked very thoroughly in … certain databases where we thought we might find it. But it wasn’t available. Then it occurred to me that there are probably a lot of Jews in other countries who haven’t registered their genetic material with any government. I imagine if I had the sort of motivation they might have, I’d do just about anything I could to avoid registering.”

  Myra’s voice was flat, almost emotionless. “You’re speaking of Holocaust survivors, and their families, of course.”

  “I am. They’re mostly European Jews, which means there’s a greater chance of finding someone, because that’s what most of our boys are.”

  Myra sighed. “I know very little about genetics, but this much I do know because it has been a matter of great concern to some Jews who are knowledgeable.” She made a little smile and said, “There are a good number of those people. You see, the population of European Jews was so decimated by the Holocaust, and then the Outbreaks, that the gene pool has shrunk, to a point where some say it’s gotten dangerously narrow. Now, I don’t know exactly what that means. Frankly, it’s all very frightening to me because it’s led to some disturbing discussions. There’s been talk of testing potential mates, in an organized program of sorts, so that some of the enhanced genetic traits we suffer from won’t be passed on to weaken us. Tay-Sachs, the propensity for ovarian and breast cancer—these things could destroy us far more effectively than Hitler ever dreamed.”

  “I haven’t heard any of this,” Janie said.

  “And you won’t. It’s all been kept very quiet. And I trust you will keep it to yourself.”

  The look Myra gave her was a blunt, undisguised warning, and Janie was certain there was some force or mandate behind it of a kind that did not appreciate interference. She nodded in accord.

  “On the one hand,” Myra went on, “we have this very reasonable fear of opening ourselves up to tampering, and on the other we have a lot to lose if we don’t tamper. So the debate rages. It started with scientists, but it’s moved on to the rabbis and scholars, and it’s a little stuck right now, I think. Some very wise people think we should do whatever we can to maintain and improve the quality of our population. Other equally wise people say we should let God do His work as He will.”

  “There are things to be said in favor of both approaches,” Janie said philosophically. “Nature always finds a way to do what needs to be done, regardless of what we happen to think of that process. That’s just how things are. You and I would be running out from under the feet of dinosaurs right now if things had gone just a little differently. And who’s to say that it shouldn’t be that way? The dinosaurs would have loved it.”

  “I am always running out from under the feet of one dinosaur or another,” Myra said facetiously. “It’s a condition of these times, I think.”

  “A universal condition,” Janie said with a little chuckle. Then she became serious again. “But biodiversity is the key to survival for any species, and if the only way to create or maintain it is artificial introduction of beneficial genetic traits, or the removal of faults, then I support that.”

  Myra allowed Janie’s declaration to hang in the air between them for a moment. “So do I, in theory,” she finally said. “But I’m afraid that theory, noble as it is, won’t get you very far with this search. The vast majority of former European Jews now live here if they don’t live in Israel. I’m sure that most of them are in that ‘certain database’ you refer to. Nothing, not even sick children, will make the Israelis agree to let you look in their version of it. And forget about hacking—just don’t even consider it. God Himself couldn’t hack into that database, it’s so secure.”

  Janie had no doubt that Myra was right. But it was disappointing, and she sighed deeply.

  “I’m sorry if this upsets you, but all you need to do to understand why is to think about what happened the last time most of those people lined up to get their numbers,” Myra said. She allowed that stark image to sink in, then added, “So you may want to consider your other idea more seriously.”

  Janie reflected on her suggestion, then shook her head. “Right now it seems almost stupid. I must have been feeling desperate when I dreamed it up.”

  “Go ahead. Desperate is something I understand.”

  She cleared her throat. “This is going to sound crazy.”

  “You would not be the first person who ever had a crazy notion.”

  “Okay. But please don’t laugh. I—I want to test the journal. For old genetic material.”

  Myra’s penciled eyebrows rose up in surprise. “Well,” she said. “I’m not laughing, but it is sort of crazy.”

  “Alejandro was a European Jew, and it’s entirely possible that he might have had the sequence we’re looking for. He must have left something of himself on that journal.”

  “Well, it belongs to you—why don’t you just take it and test it? You don’t need my permission. Or my help, really.”

  “Actually, you’re wrong. I do need your help. There’s a long wait for sequencing unless there’s an official reason to rush it. It’s gotten … busier at Biopol all of a sudden.”

  They both knew why. And for a moment, they sat in silence with their thoughts. Then Janie said, “I can’t explain this to anyone official without giving away an awful lot of information, some of which might inspire whoever it was that burned my house down to get even nastier.”

  “Shush,” Myra said quickly, “don’t say such things.”

  “I don’t even want to think about them, but I have to. I have a good friend who’s—in law enforcement, and he says that if the journal were involved in some kind of crime, anything that was found on it could be sequenced on police equipment. Right away, because it could be construed as evidence in a criminal investigation, which moves it into a different waiting line. All that would have to happen is for you to report a security breach to the police, then say the journal was touched by someone ‘suspicious-looking.’ They’ll gather the evidence, and then this friend will give me whatever comes of it. I get what I need without tipping anyone off that I’m still looking into this. Simple.”

  “I don’t think it’s so simple. What if something happens to the journal?”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to it. They’ll bring out the equipment and take their samples, very carefully, and it’ll never leave the depository. And it’s insured now, right?”

  Myra paused, then said quietly, “Not for its full value.”

  “I thought you said you put a binder on it for two hundred fifty thousand dollars.”

  “We did. But the estimates of its value are starting to come in now. And they’re a little higher than that amount.”

  Janie forced herself to fold her hands calmly in her lap. “Maybe you’d better tell me how much.”

  Myra set down her fork and looked Janie straight in the eye. “How does eight hundred thousand sound?”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “And if you don’t like that one, we just got another. For one point one million.”

  Janie nearly choked. “This is unbelievable.”


  “Well, you’d better believe it. These are expert opinions. And I do support what you’re attempting to do here, so I’m willing to help you in this little adventure of yours in any way I can. I’d prefer it if you asked me for a different kind of help, but if you decide to do this—this crazy thing you’re contemplating, which is your right, of course, then I think you’d better be very careful.”

  It was sound advice. “I will,” Janie assured her.

  At the end of the meal, as Janie commandeered the check, she said to Myra, “I want to thank you for joining me. I know the conversation wasn’t entirely pleasant, but it was very helpful to me. It almost reminds me of the last time I was here with Mom.”

  “That’s a lovely thing to say, dear.” Then Myra looked away for a moment, and when she looked back again, her eyes were teary.

  “And you were very lucky to have a nice place like this to be with her,” she said quietly.

  “I know,” Janie said.

  “Because I barely remember the last time I shared a meal with my mother. I was a very little girl. We were at Auschwitz.” She recovered her composure and smiled wistfully, then dabbed at her lips with her napkin. “But one thing I do remember is that it wasn’t this good.”

  Janie counted the rings anxiously. When Michael finally answered his phone she nearly assaulted him with questions.

  “Slow down!” he said defensively. “It went well. The detective who answered the call said the lady was very professional and quite cooperative. Helpful, even. Civilians are usually just a pain in the buttocks.”

  “Well, I briefed her pretty carefully. I guess it must have worked.” She hesitated for a moment and bit her lip nervously. “So. What did you get?”

  “Rather a lot, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, good! Wait—what do you mean afraid?”

  “We got twenty-three complete human positives, and a bunch of incompletes, some of which may be partials of the complete ones. But they might also be separate individuals.”

  “Well, one of them has to be Alejandro.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. Trouble is, which one?”