The Experimentalist

by Nick Salaman

  ‘Marie is entitled by a deed made by her Nazi father to a share in his estate, such as it was at the time the Executors took over the running of it. It was part of the agreement, signed by him, that this should be so. The executors, who became the investors, had to have a share – and a generous one – if they made a success of the enterprise which had been so severely run down by your father and his fatal enthusiasms.’

  ‘And where did “The Other Judas” come from?’ David asked. ‘The name?’

  ‘We called it that because St Jude – or Judas Thaddeus, as distinguished from Judas Iscariot – is the patron saint of lost causes. The Jewish association tickled us. It’s not a bad thing in this funny country. And her father’s business seemed to be a hopeless task indeed. He was a brilliant chemist but hopeless with money. We took it on as a charity, no less, and a non-profit charity it remained for some time, the appointed beneficiary being St Jude’s, a home for orphaned children. We still support it, of course, and indeed we have opened further homes, although it no longer makes sense for TOJI as a consumer conglomerate to have a charitable status.’

  ‘He was not just a hopeless businessman, my father,’ Marie said. ‘He was no good as a parent, either. How did he succeed in losing me after I was born?’

  ‘The Russians were at the gates of Berlin. I could not contact your father. He was almost certainly busy destroying data that could fall into Russian hands. Bombs were falling all the time. I managed to get your six-month pregnant mother out of Berlin. He had made me promise to look after her and the baby if he was dead or out of action. I found her a farmhouse he had located where she could have her baby in reasonable peace. But, alas, there were few medical facilities around at that time, and when the time came, the midwife was sick, the doctor old and incompetent, there was no penicillin, and much to my grief, your mother died just after you were born. We managed to find another mother with milk and there you were – mewling and puking. And the rest is history. Your father only narrowly escaped the continuous shelling and air raids himself. He was trying to find your mother, but it was impossible at that stage. And then he was arrested by the Americans. It took some time for them to realise the value he represented to their defence programme. There you have it.’

  ‘Mewling and puking? You seem keen on Shakespeare, for a German.’

  ‘He was not for an age, but for all time. You can’t keep him to yourself. And don’t you English love Beethoven?’

  He had a point, she supposed. They approached the nearest house and Middleburg turned to explain, ‘These houses were built for Messinger’s – which is our holding company and where all the greatest talents are accumulated – so that we could pursue the most important part of our activity in secure surroundings.’

  ‘And what is that activity, Mr Middleburg?’ asked David.

  Marie couldn’t help noticing that the more Middleburg talked money, the more politely David addressed him.

  ‘Why, new product development, of course! And – what the Government likes best – contractual research that might help it in the ever-increasing Russian threat to United States security. Experiments too secret to show you, alas, but we can proceed at least to the consumer side which is the nearer part of the development. The workers live here for an allotted term. The rest-houses are those on the right hand side of the road. A little further up the hill are the labs where the most secret work is undertaken.’

  ‘What sort of experiments are we going to see?’ Marie asked.

  ‘Oh, very small stuff, I’m afraid. Studies in poisons like botulism and campylobacter and poison dart frog and puffer fish. With quite extraordinary side effects and relevance for medicine. Experiments with mould and mould-deterrents…’

  He opened the door of the nearest house and they walked past a lobby and washroom, straight into the lab itself. White-coated men were standing over lab tables. There was a smell of gas and disinfectant in the air. Middleburg stopped beside a bespectacled biochemist who was peering at a green growth on a Petri dish.

  ‘What are you doing, Lorenz?’

  The man replied, deferentially, in a strong German accent. ‘This is a two weeks old pâté which has developed quite an efflorescence of aspergillus. If you look at this corner, however, you will see that the pâté is unaffected. It has been coated with a new edible retardant developed from lichen … You could eat this now. I have some melba toast if you would like to try, Herr Middleburg…’

  ‘Certainly, certainly,’ said Middleburg, though the other two drew back. ‘What is the purpose of experiment if you cannot enjoy its fruits?’

  The chemist offered him a small knife with which he cut off a corner of the unvitiated pâté, and consumed it with apparent relish.

  ‘Delicious!’ he exclaimed, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. ‘Fresh as tomorrow morning. Come on, you two, no back-sliding.’

  ‘I’m not a pâté-eater,’ Marie told him.

  ‘What about you, Mr Drummond?’

  But David could not be persuaded. You could see Middleburg enjoying his discomfiture. In fact, since entering the lab, his whole demeanour had changed. His nostrils flared, his eyes flashed, his head was high. This was his stamping ground.

  ‘Too bad. You have to enter into the spirit of experiment. I had the best time of my life in a laboratory. Yes, it was the best of times. We all were going somewhere together. There was nothing that could not be done.’

  ‘What else is going on in this building?’ Marie asked, eager to get away from the surrounding fungi cultures.

  ‘The door will shut as we leave,’ said Middleburg, and we will go through a special air-filtering chamber. ‘We don’t want spores drifting into our consumer product investigations.

  They entered a new laboratory.

  ‘Well, now, we have a man here, Reinhardt, experimenting with a revolutionary method of filling nutty honeycomb centres with a maximum quotient of air before they burst. Here Hilda is developing self-squeezing teabag technology. And this one is interesting … Freddi here is examining the healing powers of honey versus treacle in our new range of honey-treated sticking plasters. See, this man’s wound is being treated now! We are dependent on finding volunteers who are paid. No one is forced. We take no prisoners! Ho ho! And, moving on, here is how to turn beef into fruit, and vice versa, in our new molecular de-naturising scrambler…’

  ‘Can you do that?’ David asked.

  ‘Of course not. Just checking to see if you’re listening. There will be questions later. Come on in.’

  Middleburg edged them close to a man who was doing something with a test tube and asked him something in German. The man replied in kind.

  ‘He says he is experimenting with a new kind of toothpaste that fizzes in the mouth and attacks plaque. It is a biological compound that unfortunately keeps blowing the top off the toothpaste tube,’ Middleburg told them. ‘Now he must find out why.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ David said, though Marie couldn’t tell whether he meant it.

  They moved on: the toothpaste had a quite violent smell. The next man was trying to pasteurise a purée of fresh strawberries with a minimum of heat so that it still tasted like fresh fruit and did not distort the neck of the mini plastic milk churn for which it was destined. If that happened, air would get in and the fruit would ferment and explode if stored outside the store’s chill cabinet. There was already evidence of his unsuccessful efforts.

  Much German was expended on the workers here so that Middleburg could enlighten his visitors on the way. Middleburg cornered first one white-coat and then another. He commanded considerable respect.

  ‘And here’s another one,’ he told Marie. ‘This can and will interest you. This man is exploring the energy to be derived from food waste. See that clock above him. It is powered entirely by old blue cheese. The government is very keen. It is hot to trot.’

  It was quite plain to Marie that the man was talking deliberate nonsense. This was not the kind of experiment he was interes
ted in. He could not stop testing her out, prying and teasing. It enraged her.

  ‘Is everyone here German?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought we would feel at home! Yes, mostly, in answer to your question. We find the Germans are better workers. Well, now you have seen some of the – how shall I say? – some of the foothills of our secrets, it is time to say goodbye. You have a birthday coming up, is it not so, Marie?’

  ‘No. I have had it. On Midsummer’s Day.’

  ‘Oh dear. That is another thing I was meaning to tell you. I don’t know where you got the idea of the twenty-fourth of June as your birthday. Our records show that in fact you were born on the twenty-fourth of August. Your mother was almost six months pregnant when the war ended on the eighth of May 1945. You were apparently over a week late. Your true birthday is on the twenty-fourth of August, a month or so from now. We will have a little celebration for you. I hope you will be able to come.’

  A shift of a month in your birth date is no great issue in the scale of things, but Marie felt it was another assault on her identity. A birthday is one’s own thing, nobody else’s, and her old nanny had been very particular about celebrating it. Here was Middleburg pulling the rug from under her again. Her eyes pricked with tears. She could hardly speak. Was he mistaking her for someone else? Another girl unknown, without a name? If so, who was she? Where was she?

  ‘I’m not sure…’ she said. ‘I…’

  David wasn’t helping at all. She looked at him, willing him to furnish her with an excuse.

  ‘You must come,’ said Middleburg. ‘There are quite a lot of people anxious to see you take your inheritance.’

  ‘Can I come?’ asked David.

  There it was. He was thinking of himself.

  ‘Perhaps … as a spectator.’

  ‘That’s settled then. We can both go,’ said David.

  ‘Good. He is a good boy, your sweetheart, no?’ said Middleburg.

  Marie bit her lip. It was not David’s business to put her in situations. But she would find out nothing if she didn’t accept the invitation.

  ‘I hope that will be enough to convince you of our goodwill towards you, which we will show in rather more tangible form on your twenty-fifth birthday. What do you say?’

  ‘It sounds good,’ said David, answering first again. ‘Depends just how tangible it will be.’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ said Middleburg, addressing Marie.

  It’s not at all right, Marie thought. There’s something wrong, but I’m never going to prove it. David the Mephistopheles wants it all to go through so I inherit something of my father’s money. Maybe I should just be happy with that, though I must remember Mephistopheles was a devil. Her thoughts chased each other round her brain like swallows round a clock-tower.

  ‘I think we have seen enough,’ said David. ‘Perhaps we should take her home now. It’s not every day you discover you have a Nazi father.’

  ‘Which reminds me,’ said Middleburg. ‘Your father’s name, your real name, is Messinger. That is the name under which you will be invited.’

  Tact was evidently not David’s strong point, but it wasn’t the Nazis’ either. Middleburg offered them refreshments in the castle as they walked back, which Marie politely refused. At length they were received back into the Rolls and sank gratefully into its cocoon of luxury. It had been a taxing day, at least for Marie. Every time she learned something new, fresh thickets appeared ahead of her. Most of the journey back to LA was spent in silence, with Middleburg, now and then, interjecting a conversation stopper like, ‘We own that winery over there. They’re starting to plant Zinfandel but I guess it’ll never be a classic wine.’

  She made the kind of small noise you make when there’s nothing to say.

  David said, ‘I guess not, though I hear Mourvèdre is making a comeback.’

  The car finally pulled up at the entrance to the little street that led to her studio. She got out and said goodbye.

  ‘You must come again soon,’ said Middelburg through his open window. ‘We’re opening a Manson annexe shortly, after they’ve found him guilty, of course, representing 1050 Cielo Drive, the place where Sharon Tate and her friends were knifed by Manson’s girls last year. The ranch where the Family lived is not far away from the castle.’

  It was probably his idea of a joke. ‘I can’t wait,’ said Marie, and walked away, leaving them in the car. ‘Thank you for the tour.’

  She wanted to be alone. Only later did she wonder whether leaving David with Middleburg had been altogether wise.

  ***

  Next morning, Marie woke out of a dream that her lost little girl had been calling her again. The shock of the loss assailed her once more as she lay with the unremitting sunshine of California pouring itself out, like the chorus of an American musical – intently, relentlessly – into her face. There was even a bright golden haze suffusing the bins across the street as a cleaner from the store next door poured in his daily sacrifice of dust and garbage.

  Where was her little girl? What was she doing now, grown up and talking? Who was teaching her, and what? There was not a day when she did not think of her baby who would never know her mother. Marie wiped away a tear and hoped for things if not better then at least different. She got up, showered, dressed and felt more Californian. Luckily, she thought, the baby had been taken away before she could really bond with her. Then the loss would have been completely unbearable.

  There was an envelope waiting for her, pushed through her studio letterbox. Inside was an invitation. It read:

  You are invited to a Midsummer Celebration

  given by The Board of Messinger’s

  on the occasion of the 25th birthday of

  Miss Marie Messinger

  on Saturday the 24th of August at 6.30pm

  at Château Cauchemar

  Dress: Smart Informal

  RSVP

  There was a crest of Laval, the serpent etched into a ruby background along with another device, of Mercury holding a retort. She looked at the card as though it had been conjured out of air. Middleburg had stolen the crest and twinned it with his Messinger logo. She was beginning to feel quite dislocated under the burden of so many surnames. That, and the shifting date of her birthday, made the very ground she walked on seem to shimmy like the San Andreas fault.

  ***

  It was too early for Margot – the rigours of the Merrymaid night were always considerable – so Marie first called Joe the Red Indian and then David and asked them both to meet her for coffee at Oliver’s, Pershing Square, in an hour. There were protests about the earliness of the rendezvous – David had a meeting later that he couldn’t miss –but she insisted it was important. When they were all three met together, she told them as briefly as she could anything more that seemed relevant about her past – not so many gaps, but a few to be filled in and a few more to be guarded – and then she showed them both the invitation.

  ‘What does it mean?’ she asked them. ‘Apart from the obvious.’

  ‘It means they want something,’ said David.

  ‘And they have something,’ said Joe.

  ‘Do you think I should go?’ she asked.

  ‘Only if one of us is right there with you,’ said David.

  ‘If not in the room, at least outside the door,’ echoed Joe.

  Nervousness made her impatient with the two men.

  ‘They go to and fro in the evening: they grin like a dog, andrun about the city,’ she said, recalling a Psalm she had sung in the old school chapel; it had occasioned giggling among the girls.

  Joe looked puzzled. David clearly thought she had gone mad.

  ‘Psalms,’ she told them. ‘One choir sings the first half of the verse and then the second choir sings the second half which says the same thing in a different way. It’s what we’re doing now. We don’t need to say the same thing in a different way. We need to move forward.’

  David frowned. Joe laughed.

  ‘Don’t yo
u just love the English when they say things like that,’ said Joe. ‘And it was sweet of you to say we, but it was David here andI saying the same thing.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Don’t mind me. So. What if they don’t let you into the castle?’

  ‘I shall be delivering wine. I’ll say I made a mistake with the last order. David here can be my assistant for the day.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said David, rather grudgingly.

  ‘There’s no other way,’ said Joe.

  ‘Do we know anything more about The Other Judas?’ she asked.

  ‘The company’s big,’ Joe told her. ‘I was running through some more background stuff. It’s frighteningly big. But strangely enough, or perhaps naturally enough, no one knows much about it or who started it. Big companies, consortiums, like it that way. They don’t like too many questions.

  ‘But why do they think I should be interested in a big company?’

  ‘It’s the money,’ said David.

  ‘I think they are reckoning on your curiosity to come and find out, maybe they know that you’d like a family, a background. That feeling is very strong in people. We all like to know who we are,’ said Joe. ‘As for the tie-up with Messinger, it’s really important to them. It was billed as a takeover but it was really Messinger who did the taking through another of their companies called Metromark. The government loved it. It allowed Messinger, which had government investment, to preserve its privacy and, at the same time, seem less sinister. There was a certain amount of protest from TOJI shareholders who didn’t understand.’