by Dan A. Baker
“How will you take care of them?” Jasmine asked.
“We’ll deal,” he said, walking down the stairs to the gate.
Jasmine rushed over to the staircase. “Did they help the Raolians?
“Of course they did. They paid for the whole cloning thing and gave them the science. They also supported most of the bioethics groups, and virtually all of the right-wing Bible belt politicians. Why wouldn’t they?” he said, closing the gate. “How many years of delay was that one worth? Let us take care of them,” he said, walking toward the street.
Will started to follow him, but he was gone. “What do you think?” he asked when he came back up the stairs. Ritzy was still agitated and barking in urgent bursts.
“I don’t know. He’s one of the strangest men I’ve ever met. He was like a ghost,” Jasmine said. “Are you sure he was working with Walter?” “He somehow knew that Bill, our star chimp, is gay. Walter and I just discovered that a few weeks ago, and I don’t think we ever discussed it on a phone. He must be genuine. What are you going to do?” Will asked.
“I don’t quite understand why he seemed so intent on talking me into lying down. I thought Walter was close to going back into public life to fight,” she said.
“Fighting is good if you win. Remember what Walter said about just driving around the dummies? Will said. “I’m going to leave tonight. I just think that’s the right thing to do, and for a lot of reasons.”
Jasmine was slammed back into the realization that Will was leaving.
“I guess I’ll make this call in the morning,” she said, suddenly aware that they had been out on the deck for two hours. The stiffness was painful. As Will prepared to leave, Jasmine sat in the kitchen, breathing deeply, while trying to wash out the bitter feeling of aloneness. The world is bigger and I am smaller, she thought. She was experiencing the feeling she had when her mother died.
“The car’s here,” Will said softly. “There’s a little hotel in Paris on the Left Bank, the Hotel Amelie. Meet me there next week. Here’s the address. We’ll use Malia’s email to stay in touch. There will be a car across the street for a few days. Their names are Herb and Chester. They’re both downstairs now. They’re the best, and they’ll take care of you.”
“I just want a normal life,” Jasmine said, distantly. “I feel like I’m in a dream, a long strange dream.” Will held her tightly, swaying softly.
“I’m not going to brow-beat you about what to do. I love you too much for that. I’ll be watching tomorrow. I won’t be there, but I’ll be watching. I guess this is goodbye,” he said softly.
The emotions were like a time-lapse waterfall. Just as one wave of feelings billowed through her, another one began. Will’s leaving was the best thing for him to do. She knew that, but the resolve she felt a day earlier was weakening, and the terrifying juggernaut of powerful forces arrayed before her seemed insurmountable now.
“Goodbye,” Jasmine said, and walked out on the deck.
The evening passed slowly. Jasmine finally found something to read and took her mother’s old poetry book of to the big couch in the basement. The poem leaped out at her, and seemed to paint the mystery of life in vivid color.
We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.
A red wing rose in the darkness.
And suddenly a hare ran across the road.
One of us pointed to it with his hand.
That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive.
Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.
O my love, where are they, where are they going
The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebbles.
I ask not out of sorrow, but in wonder.
The Czeslaw Milosz poem touched her deeply. The profound emotions of helplessness and bewilderment from the deaths of her mother, husband, and friends welled up in her now. The vast mysteries of existence and life and death were unchanged. She was left humbled and bewildered. As she slowly closed the book, a yellowed newspaper clipping fell on her lap.
NOBEL PRIZE FOR POLISH POET The small headline read.
The skyrocket of pain leaped from her stomach, through her spine and tore out of the back of her skull in an instant, leaving a wave of intense, pulsing anguish.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Ritzy stayed on her blanket by the door while the Latte machine warmed up. The rain was steady now, blowing in from the west in long undulating sheets. At least the sound of the surf was back. Jasmine was grateful for that. The long night of uncertainty passed slowly, but in the end, the subtle sound of the distant surf absorbed the maelstrom of confusion and allowed her a little rest.
The place was there. It was there somewhere, just beyond reach and just beyond comprehension. The place of understanding, the place of wholeness, and the place of enlightenment seemed somewhere beyond. Jasmine tried to reach this place during the long night of turmoil, but it was just out of reach. She wanted to know that she was doing the right thing, but the confusion swirled around her in a flashing blur of questions.
“Just drive around the Dummies.”
“They’ll like, crucify you Mom!”
“Let us fight them.”
“There might be another way.”
“Don’t give them what they want.”
The take-home messages floated before her, like graffiti on a sheet of glass. Maybe it’ll be better this way, she felt herself thinking, trying one more time to choke down the desire to stand up and tell the truth to a dangerous, reality-adverse world. Maybe it’ll be better this way.
Now she felt like locating exactly what it was that tipped her decision. Was it the danger? Was it the fear for Roy’s life? Was it the humiliation of losing the Nobel? Or, was it the unbearable pain that her father would have to endure?
Maybe it was the risk that she wouldn’t be able to see Will for a long time. She could see them horsing around Paris. They’d be in Paris in the springtime, looking at the collected works of geniuses, hour after hour, and then falling asleep on the long yellow cushions in the Musee d’Orsay, stuffed with the brilliance of the great impressionist painters.
She sat at the computer and looked at the dialogue box in the email program. She clicked the auto send function off, then clicked on three PM, and clicked on the SEND button. She would have plenty of time to get home and turn it off. It helped, knowing that if something did happen to her, the world would know that the future had arrived.
Driving into UCSF was an unexpected pleasure. As she looked around at the other commuters she thought of the years she attended UCSF, getting up early to make classes. It felt good to be dressed up and sitting in traffic, going to work, and watching people sip their coffee from stainless steel cups.
Edward Maynard met her at the front entrance of the new Genome Sciences building. To her surprise, he had decided to use the big lobby for her announcement. The Regents had bought a huge hanging sculpture that tried to be a strand of DNA, but the colors weren’t right. They were too bright and too active. Darla would be ranting loudly if she was there.
“Good morning, Jasmine,” Edward Maynard said.
“We’re going to have it in here?” Jasmine asked.
“The light is good, the art is abysmal, but then it’s a public building,” he said. “We’re expecting quite a few people.” Jasmine looked at him and cried inside. Edward was everything she had hoped to be: a dignified honest giver in a world of ruthless takers.
“Okay,” she said weakly.
“You look a little better,” Edward said.
“I’ve had a very hard time with this.”
“I know you have, and I know you’ll do what’s best. I know you will,” he said. “There’re a lot of people watching today.”
Jasmine crossed to him and hugged him gently. “I wanted to be a fighter,” she said softly. “I wanted to come home.”
Jasmine sat quietly on the brightly colored modern couch in the lobby, hoping the rain would stop so
she could walk around the block. They came up like they were approaching a dying animal, she thought. She noticed her old friends, Marjorie’s colleagues, and Earl’s old friends. They congratulated her, and looked at her intently, trying to glimpse the secrets written in her face. The women walked away squeezing their hands with concern. The men held their eyes on her from across the room, wondering what she would say.
The tension was gathering with every person who walked into the room. Everyone knew that something big had happened, and that it was something scary and unprecedented.
Marjorie…, Marjorie…, Marjorie… It seemed like every time the name was uttered, it was amplified.
The entire board of Regents arrived in a nervous gaggle. Their trust in Edward stretched to the limit. They approached her as a body, and congratulated Jasmine while examining her for any clue.
The press arrived in a flurry of haste, and muted bustle. The tripods, cameras, and lights went up in a quick little dance that only took about ten minutes. The reporters approached Jasmine for an after speech interview, but when they heard her telling the others there wouldn’t be any interviews they turned back to their cameramen for stand-ups.
Its better this way, Jasmine thought. “I’ve given enough,” she said aloud, drawing a few glances.
Edward stayed at her side for the entire hour, making sure everyone knew he supported her completely. As she looked away to the big plant in the corner she felt light-headed again, and felt her equilibrium slip away. It was deeper and more intense this time. Her vision narrowed and she felt like she was far, far away. Edward slipped his arm around her.
“You look a little pale,” he said, his silvery voice bringing her back gently.
“I’m very tired now,” she said, looking into his eyes.
“Well you’ve got a lot of help and support here. Do what you think is best, and we’ll fall in behind you, whatever it is.”
They call it the look around point: the point in a proceeding where everyone starts looking around at the same time, wondering when it’s going to start. Edward glanced at his watch and glanced at the Regents. Jasmine watched him walk to the podium. He seemed to float across the room, his smile and upright bearing immediately imparting a feeling of self-assured dignity to everyone.
“Ladies and Gentlemen: good morning to you all. We think of ourselves as a family here at UCSF. It may be a little messy and it may be a little rowdy at times, but we’re a family nonetheless.” Edward beamed as the crowd responded with a nervous laugh. “And when a family member gains recognition for work well done, we like to encourage as much back slapping as possible.”
Jasmine looked around the room at all the bright smiling faces and felt a sudden stab of pain. I belong here, she thought, and I’m leaving today. I’ve been run out of my field, my community, my house, and my country. I belong here and yet I have to go.
She stood up when she heard the introduction and looked around the room. He was standing by the nearest camera in the dark blue climbing jacket, staring at her. He turned his head to the door. Jonelle walked in with Roy. A few people who had seen Roy in the clinics tapped the people next to them.
The loss of equilibrium happened again, but this time the terrifying loss of time and place shook her deeply. The reality of fear that she experienced when Victor was killed washed over her as she looked out at the room, finally stopping on Malia’s face. The crowd looked at her, trying not to say anything, but the murmur started somewhere in the corner. Edward’s strong hand slipped around her waist and gently tugged her toward the podium.
She carefully adjusted the microphone and looked out at the large crowd. Time froze. Her mind froze. She stood there looking at a scene she couldn’t bear to see. “I belong here,” she said, haltingly, directly into the microphone, shocking herself and everyone else.
“I was born here. This is my community and this is my country. Americans are my people. My husband, Earl Metcalf, was a doctor. He was a doctor who helped sick people get better. When we saw there was a way to make sure people didn’t get sick from the many little mistakes that evolution has produced, we believed that was a good thing. To prevent the horror of disease in innocent people and in innocent children was what we worked for.” She looked down at her hands for a moment, struggling to hold on.
“As the scientists here today know, what we are actually doing is impossible. We are working on a frontier so mysterious and complex that progress has been stopped cold for decades at a time until someone thought of a different way to look at the problem, and a different way to solve it.”
Jasmine paused, looking around the room. The strange old man who had told them so much on the deck stood by the big DNA sculpture.
He looked like a distinguished elderly scientist in his brown suit and soft blue tie. He looked intently at Jasmine.
“Earl and I were able to do that. We were able to see a different way to solve the agonizing problem of congenital disease and like all scientists, we wanted our work to produce results. We wanted the disasters of Cystic Fibrosis, Tay Sachs disease, and Progeria to end. And, for those fortunate enough to live in enlightened nations, they will end and very soon. I will travel to Sweden next week to accept this award for my work and the work of my deceased husband, whose interest in helping those stricken by disease continued until his death.”
Jasmine looked out on the crowd, looking into the faces of the hard working researchers, the hopeful eager faces of the graduate students, and the deeply concerned faces of the Regents.
“Thank you,” she said. The pause lasted what seemed like hours. No one wanted to start the applause, because there was more, much more. They knew it. Jasmine looked at them all, saying goodbye silently to her peers, her friends, her daughter and her patient. Roy looked at her, smiling broadly.
“Thanks for making me not sick!” Roy blurted in the brittle silence.
Jasmine looked at him and closed her eyes, turning to leave the podium.
Will suddenly appeared from the hallway behind the podium and walked up to her. When she saw him, a rush of panic stopped her cold, as she wondered if her mind had slipped and she was seeing something that wasn’t there. When he reached her, he slipped both hands behind her neck and held her to him for a moment. When she felt the soft silk of his shirt and the hardness of his arms, she almost collapsed from the relief.
“He was a plant. Nielsen never worked with anyone like him. I found out an hour ago. I’ve had enough of these guys. Let’s take them on. Let’s take them all on right here and right now,” Will said, stepping back to look at her.
“But he was so…,” she said, the weariness returning to her.
“Well camouflaged?” Will said.
“Like Sid Vicious?” Jasmine said weakly.
“Just like Sid Vicious. And they can’t turn around,” Will said.
“And they can’t turn around?” Jasmine asked, the tears blurring her vision, as she watched the old man hurriedly leaving.
“And they can’t turn around,” Will said evenly.
Jasmine stepped back in front of the microphone. The welding together of her soul started deep inside her, and was warm and powerful.
“I have one more thing to say today, and it might take awhile. I am here to tell you that the future has arrived, and that the great American giants are back,” she said, settling in for a long speech.
