A Fierce Radiance

by Lauren Belfer

  “Good. I’m hoping to stay out of your way, too. I’m hoping you’ll forget about me completely.”

  Frowning, James Stanton appeared at a loss for a response. Nothing like agreement to diffuse an argument, Claire had learned long ago. By necessity, she was an expert in the manipulation of her assigned subjects. Stanton stared at her, and she stared back.

  “Maybe you should tell me what you’re dealing with here. So I can work harder at staying out of your way,” Claire added with a flirtatious touch of irony.

  Her tone surprised him, too. For one instant, he allowed this woman to take him away from the morning’s pressures and responsibilities…to a vacation at the seashore, a hotel room filled with sunlight. He confronted her naked body on the bed.

  Stop. She’d made a request for information. What was he dealing with? He couldn’t easily explain the issues to an outsider. Here at the Institute, the medication had been tested only on mice, never on a human. Worldwide, the medication had been tested on only a half-dozen humans. For a variety of reasons, none had survived. Nothing about the medication was established except its unpredictability. Educated guesswork alone would provide Stanton with the proper dosage for the injections. Edward Reese might have an allergic reaction and die the moment Stanton gave him the first shot. An undiscovered impurity in this batch of the drug could kill him. Yet the patient was on the verge of death anyway. Most likely he would be dead within hours. There was also a chance that the medication would work. In that case, James Stanton and his team would save Edward Reese’s life.

  All this he was dealing with. To Claire Shipley he said only, “The patient will die without radical intervention. That’s what makes him a suitable candidate for this experiment.”

  Claire detected the emotions held in check beneath Stanton’s professional demeanor. She made herself sound sympathetic. “I understand, Doctor. Tell me about the medication.”

  To Stanton, the potential power of the medication was staggering. Its origins, however, were preposterous. “What about it?” His tone was harsher than he’d intended.

  Claire heard his defensiveness, and it alerted her: here was a place where she could penetrate his inner life, his doubts, fears, and hopes. “Everything. What it is. Where it’s made. How it’s made.” She asked a string of questions to keep him engaged, to develop a common ground between them.

  “We make it in the laboratory downstairs.”

  “I’d like to photograph the lab later.”

  “Not possible.” His refusal was automatic. He wouldn’t let an outsider get too close.

  “Think about it.” Keep the conversation moving forward, don’t stop to recognize rejection. “What’s the medication made from?”

  When his professional colleagues heard the answer to this question, they thought he was crazed. He’d learned to confront their disapproval openly rather than retreat from it. He gave her a half smile, not exactly a friendly smile, more like a dare. “Green mold. It’s made from a fluid produced by a common green mold in the same family as the mold that grows on stale bread and that’s used to make Roquefort cheese.”

  “Sounds delicious.” Green-mold medicine didn’t bother Claire, if it worked. She saw Emily’s small and perfect hands folded upon her chest as Claire waited for the undertaker. Who had folded those delicate hands? Claire herself? She couldn’t remember doing it. Her own mother, who might have remembered, was dead now, too, so this was something else Claire would never know.

  “Depends on your point of view.” Stanton was glad she made a joke about the mold, glad she didn’t try to ingratiate herself with disingenuous acceptance. After all, maybe he was crazed. Recognizing the possibility steadied him. Gave him perspective. In the lab, they grew the mold in milk bottles and bedpans. The drug had worked well on mice in the lab; indeed the results had been spectacular. The medication was ready for the next step. This was an experiment like any other, he reassured himself. Just like any other.

  “Jamie.” Cradling a folded towel, a young woman walked down the hall toward them. Swaying on high heels, she held herself with the elegance of a movie star. Her makeup was perfect. Her dark hair was held back with a filigree barrette at the nape of her neck, a utilitarian style that she’d transformed into the height of fashion. Beneath her unbuttoned, tan-colored lab coat, she wore a stylish skirt and a white silk blouse. Claire rarely felt outdone in appearance, but this woman made her feel overweight and earthbound.

  When she reached them, Stanton said, “Claire Shipley, this is Dr. Lucretia Stanton. Our resident mycologist.”

  Claire demanded of her memory the meaning of the word mycologist. A page in a high school science textbook came to mind. A mycologist studies mold.

  “Please, call me Tia.” Her tone was more youthful and friendly than Claire expected from her appearance, and her appearance was the opposite of what Claire would have expected from a woman who studied mold. “Jamie told me you were coming today. I wish I could shake hands, but as you see.” She held forth the towel, and Claire glimpsed a glass vial of brownish yellow powder cradled within it.

  Tia Stanton, James Stanton…were they a couple? That would make an intriguing twist, a modern-day version of Madame and Monsieur Curie, the French couple who discovered radium. In her best of-course-you-can-trust-me manner, Claire asked, “Are you two married?”

  The female Dr. Stanton laughed and took a step backward, as if to escape a common accusation.

  “Tia is my sister. She’s younger and much more brilliant than I am,” James Stanton said. “She’s willing to work here at the Institute even though she has to put up with me. The job market for mycologists, let alone female mycologists, who want to do medical research is somewhat limited—a fact that is obviously an affront to our civilization.”

  Claire was an only child and thus not an expert in siblings, but she thought Tia looked at her brother with an unusual degree of trust and affection. Glancing between them, Claire saw that the two shared a familial link in their eyes and their coloring.

  Despite its appeal, Stanton resisted the urge to continue this conversation. “Let’s get started.” Abruptly he turned away and walked into the hospital room. Tia followed with the vial of brownish yellow powder. Claire experienced a satisfying sense that both Dr. Stantons had forgotten her. At the long counter along the wall, the two had a quiet discussion and checked the information in Stanton’s binder.

  Using the Rolleiflex, Claire went to work. She knelt to make the two scientists look larger and more dramatic in the photos. The distinctive feature of the Rolleiflex was that the viewfinder was on top, and Claire held the camera close to her waist to frame the shots. Nurse Brockett brought them a sealed container of clear fluid. A Filipino orderly wheeled in a cart of sterilized glassware. James Stanton chose a beaker from the cart. Double-checking the measurements, he mixed the powder and the liquid in the beaker. Claire photographed every step. Film is the least of our costs, so use it, her photo editor always said. Better to have too much coverage than not enough, to give some choice in the layout meetings.

  While Claire worked, she recalled reading in the Times some months before about a new medicine made from a fluid given off by green mold…sitting in the garden, the pale leaves feathery on the trees, her son building a model-train village across the flagstones at her feet. Yes, she’d read the article in the spring, May or June. The experimental drug was called penicillin. The drug had been discovered in the late 1920s by Dr. Alexander Fleming, a researcher in London. Although Fleming published his discovery and experimented with the mold, he’d had no success developing the fluid into a viable medication. The mold was temperamental, virtually impossible to work with. Few researchers saw any reason to pursue Fleming’s discovery. Penicillin was essentially forgotten until the past few years. With the war raging in Europe, physicians and military leaders were desperate to find a cure for battlefield infections. The development of sulfa drugs in the 1930s had shifted physicians’ attitudes toward systemic medicatio
ns, those that could be injected into the body without harming healthy tissues. Researchers at Oxford in England, and at Columbia University here in New York, began experimenting with penicillin. According to the newspaper, penicillin was thousands of times more powerful than sulfa drugs. Unlike sulfa drugs, which were made from chemical dyes and caused a range of side effects, thus far penicillin had proven to be nontoxic and without side effects. Scientists theorized that it would prove to be useful against a wide range of infections, including pneumonia, scarlet fever, meningitis, syphilis, and blood poisoning. However, the necessary clinical testing hadn’t yet been done. Given the production problems, the Times noted, penicillin might remain nothing more than a laboratory curiosity.

  A quiet crowd gathered at the door, doctors, nurses, orderlies, and several administrators. Their presence alone showed Claire what was at stake here today for James Stanton and Lucretia Stanton. A robust, gray-haired man dressed in the white uniform of a naval captain pushed his way into the room. From his sense of entitlement, not to mention the flashy uniform, Claire pegged him as Dr. Rivers.

  “All right, let’s get going, I’ve got a luncheon meeting at noon.”

  The usual way of the world, even here. Rush ahead because the boss has a luncheon to get to.

  “I trust you’ve checked this batch for impurities, Stanton.”

  Instead of answering the question, Stanton said, “Dr. Rivers, this is Claire Shipley.”

  Forgetting his schedule, Dr. Rivers turned gracious. He took Claire’s hand and patted it, holding it a second too long. His skin was puffy. She suppressed the inclination to pull her hand away. “Honored to meet you. I’ve admired your work.”

  “Thank you,” she replied, grateful for the recognition. If his admiration made the assignment easier, so much the better.

  “I knew Harry would send me the best.” He was referring to the magazine’s editor, Henry Luce. “You have everything you need, Miss Shipley? Mrs. Shipley?” He had the soft trace of a southern accent and a cultivated southern charm.

  “Mrs.” Claire continued to use her married name, both because she’d made her reputation with it and because it felt like a protection for her son. The stigma of divorce was bad enough; she didn’t want the parents of Charlie’s friends to wonder if he’d been born out of wedlock.

  “My staff has made you welcome?”

  “Extremely.” James Stanton was the one she had to work with, so she positioned herself on his side. “They’ve been most accommodating. In every way. Especially Dr. James Stanton.”

  “Good. Stanton, give Mrs. Shipley every consideration, would you?”

  “I have, sir, and I will.” She heard the edge in Stanton’s voice. She didn’t dare glance at him, for fear she would smile and give the game away.

  Dr. Rivers glanced around the room. “You’re alone here, Mrs. Shipley?”

  Claire knew what this question meant: no man here with you, Mrs. Shipley? No man to be in charge of everything? After years of experience, the question annoyed her only a little. She didn’t need to fight any personal or societal battles with him or anyone. She only needed to get the story. “Quite alone, Dr. Rivers.”

  “And you can manage?”

  “Yes, I can manage.”

  “Good for you.” He play-punched the air with approval. “Okay, Stanton, let’s go. I’ve got three minutes.”

  Dr. Stanton ignored his boss’s injunction to hurry. He stood at the porcelain sink at the end of the counter and slowly washed his hands. Nurse Brockett held a clean towel for him. He dried his hands methodically. With care, he filled a syringe with liquid penicillin measured to a precise amount.

  “Thirty-five thousand units,” he said to Tia, who nodded and made a note of it in the binder. The dosing was extrapolated from what they’d been giving the experimental mice. A mouse weighed x and was cured with dose y. This human subject weighed a and therefore needed dose b. A simple algebraic equation. He tried to maintain this level of detachment, to keep at bay the other variables vying for his attention by the hundreds. The leap between a mouse and a human suddenly became staggering. Yet he had to move forward. Holding the syringe upward, he pushed the plunger to make certain no air remained inside. He capped the needle. Tia watched intently, as if poised to catch any misstep. He stoppered the beaker that held the remaining penicillin. He went to the bedside. Nurse Brockett followed him.

  Edward Reese appeared comatose, his head fallen to one side at an odd, twisted angle. The stench was pervasive, but Stanton didn’t notice. Holding the syringe in his right hand, Stanton put his left hand over the patient’s.

  “Mr. Reese, I’m Dr. Stanton.” He took his time. Stanton believed that reassurance and respect were part of the treatment process, too.

  “Everything that’s happened to you in the past few hours must be a little confusing.”

  Mr. Reese showed no sign of hearing him.

  “We’ve got a special medicine we want to try today. It’s proven useful for the type of illness you’ve come down with.” His voice and manner were soothing and calm. “You shouldn’t feel anything when I give you the shot, possibly some stinging, but that will pass. We’ll be giving you this medication every four hours. All you have to do is rest and let the medicine work. Someone will be with you all the time to make sure you’re okay. If you need anything, just ask.”

  Mr. Reese wasn’t capable of asking for anything.

  “Now I’m going to inject the medicine into a muscle in your arm.” Based on his research, he chose to give the medication intramuscularly instead of through an intravenous drip.

  Claire positioned herself on the far side of the bed, looking across Mr. Reese to Stanton and Brockett, capturing in one shot the contrast of their faces: the intense concentration of the doctor and nurse, the skeletal emptiness of Mr. Reese, Tia gripping a pencil and frowning in concentration in the background.

  Nurse Brockett pushed up the striped sleeve of the hospital gown and cleaned a spot on Mr. Reese’s upper arm with an alcohol-dampened cotton ball, adding the smarting scent of alcohol to the stench of infection. Dr. Stanton removed the cap from the needle and slowly injected the medication. Those standing around angled to get a better view as they watched the brownish yellow fluid being pressed into Mr. Reese’s body.

  When the injection was complete, Dr. Stanton withdrew the needle and placed the syringe on the metal tray Nurse Brockett held out to him. In the silence the syringe clattered against the metal. She placed the tray on the bedside table and wiped the injection spot with a fresh alcohol-dampened cotton ball, pressing against the skin to ward off bleeding. Dr. Stanton stepped back. He felt suspended in time, waiting for a reaction. What he wanted was no reaction. Everything should remain the same. Mr. Reese continued to breathe in short, shallow gasps of pain.

  After several minutes, Nurse Brockett checked Mr. Reese’s pulse and blood pressure. She nodded to Dr. Stanton, then to the others. The audience relaxed into a fidgety sense of relief, the men touching their ties, the women patting their hair. Everything was normal. The patient had received the medication and was still alive. Nurse Brockett noted the pulse and blood pressure on the chart, maintaining the usual routines.

  “Well done, Stanton,” Dr. Rivers said as he strode out. The crowd slipped away. After a few private words with her brother, Tia left. Dr. Stanton asked Nurse Brockett to put the remainder of the liquid penicillin into the refrigerator until it was needed. Then he turned to Claire. He was surprised by how liberated he felt, how lighthearted. He even felt a touch of pride that he’d been able to show Claire Shipley this accomplishment. But work pressed against him. “Most likely we won’t see any results for several hours, Mrs. Shipley. Probably not until tonight. Perhaps you’d like to return to your office? I’ll have someone telephone you later.”

  “No, thanks,” Claire said cheerfully. “I’ll wait here.”

  “I thought you would.” His face softened into a diffident smile. “I need to make some notes, so I’m a
fraid you’re on your own.”

  “Exactly what I like to be.”

  “I suspected as much.”

  All at once Claire liked him, his dry humor, his hidden shyness. Retrieving his binder, he sat at the desk in the corner and began writing, his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. Observing him from a distance, Claire realized how attractive he was. When she took his picture, he didn’t glance up.

  What now? The story had just begun, yet the action had dissipated. Of course the waiting was part of the story, too, with its own rhythm, its own creeping boredom and anxiety. Claire organized and numbered the rolls of film she’d exposed and outlined the captions. She loaded the cameras with fresh film, so she wouldn’t be caught changing film at a crucial moment. Sensing that she needed a few more shots of Mr. Reese at rest, she turned to him.

  Then she noticed the woman standing at the far side of the bed and clutching a camel-hair coat to her chest. When had she slipped in? The woman’s shoulder-length straight hair, a bright, pure blond, was pushed behind her ears uncombed. Her youthful skin was splotchy, her eyes swollen. She wore a blue cashmere twin set that was stretched down on the left side, as if she’d slept in it. Her plaid skirt had twisted so that the zipper was halfway toward the front. Her perfect pearls, glowing with a pinkish sheen, made her appearance even more bedraggled by comparison. She stared at the bed but appeared afraid to take the ten steps that would bring her to the bedside and envelop her in the reek of infection.

  The patient’s wife. She had to be.

  Claire’s renowned colleague Robert Capa said that if you didn’t take sides as a photographer, you were nothing but a voyeur. Claire knew Capa, had talked to him for hours over drinks, questioning him about his experiences. He’d forthrightly said that he’d be happy to continue their conversations in a hotel room, but although Claire didn’t oppose an occasional (or more than occasional) fling, she avoided men who were reputed to ask every woman who came along. Claire appreciated the perhaps naive pleasure of feeling special. Instead Claire made Capa her friend and learned what she could from him.