Ezembe

by Jeffrey L. Morris

  “Well, for one, the amount of work involved to get to the bottom of this: it’s way beyond our resources, as you well know. You and I both have day jobs. Of course, we could get a big bag of money and a dozen Igors in a New York minute if we went public, but I want to respect James’ wishes here. It’s his life.”

  “It is.”

  “You do need to have a chat with him about the ramifications here, but I’m happy to continue as we are.” Pat pursed his lips, and after a long moment, said, “In my own research alone, he could be invaluable. His description of my little beauties was uncannily accurate.”

  “Yes, it’s crossed my mind to pull him into my research, too. It’s...tempting.”

  “Exactly. He didn’t really tell me much I didn’t already know, but the feel for the little buggers I got from his account was phenomenal. This thing where he can interpret communication among them is just, well—if he dreamed that bit up, he’s bloody psychic or he’s been boning up on protozoan parasites. Our own knowledge of chemistry as a communication medium in bacteria is getting pretty good, but his innate ability to understand them, how could he know that? It’s as if he were one of them.”

  “It’s true.”

  Pat drummed the eraser end of his pencil on the desk, occasionally bouncing off the lampshade for a cymbals effect. “So it brings us back to the same question: what are we going to do?”

  “That’s entirely up to James.”

  “Well, I, for one, wouldn’t want to throw him to the wolves even if he wanted that. There’s too many Rrrr-Scholls in the world. He’d be drowning in power plays before you could say pharmaceutical vampires.” Pat wound his lips while he thought, and the more he thought the more twisted it became, until he finally said, “Why don’t you call him to the dark side?”

  Karen snorted. “Med school? I tried to steer him that way as a child. He had precisely zero interest.”

  “Well, you never know. Couldn’t hurt to suggest it.”

  “If he were to go into medicine, he’d almost certainly become the greatest doctor since Hippocrates.”

  “Greater, if they don’t burn him as a witch.”

  “Yeah,” Karen agreed, “there’s an attractive notion: tabloid news, the sick, the lame, and the insane at James’ feet. Not to mention the media circus.” They were silent for a while; then she said, “I’ll talk to him.”

  ~* * *~

  “Thank you, Myron, that will be all.”

  “Sure, Dr. Scholl.” Myron Pukowski skulked out of Bob’s office and down the hall.

  A thickening plot, Bob thought. He stood up, straightened his tie, tugged at the bottom of his jacket, and made a beeline for Pat’s office.

  “Dr. Roche, may I have a word with you, please?”

  “Why, certainly, Dr. Scholl.” Pat drew out the “r” in “doctor” slightly—for his own amusement. “Step into my office.”

  As they walked in, Bob stood too close to the singing fish and set it off. Here’s a li’l song I wrote, you might wanna sing it note for note.

  “Turn that damned thing off, please!” Bob snapped. He pushed his hand over his thin shock of hair and returned it to its home on the crown of his head.

  “It’ll go off by itself in a minute, Bob. Relax.”

  But don’ worry

  “Now, please!”

  Be happy.

  “Okay, okay, take it easy.” Pat pulled the offending article off the wall and switched it off. “It’s just a fish, Bob.”

  Bob shook his head to clear the ditty and stated flatly, “I have reason to believe you have been conducting unauthorized research on university property.”

  “Excuse me?” Pat blustered.

  “Don’t deny it. You have been carrying out unauthorized research, and I would like an explanation. I would like it now, please.”

  “Bob, we’re making big progress with the gondii research. What more do you want?”

  “You’ve been doing quite a bit more than that. You’ve been looking into DNA aberrations, amongst other things, on University time and using University resources.”

  “Well, only as a by-product of this work.”

  “That’s BS and you know it. You’ve come across something else. I also believe you have drafted Dr. Weems into this unauthorized work.” Bob paused, for dramatic effect. “I’d like an explanation. And I would also like to remind you that any research generated by yourself is the property of the University.” Bob struck one leg forward and stood, hands on hips, shoulders drawn back.

  Pat put his hands on his own hips and mirrored his boss’s pose. “So you’ve seen the data?” he said with a dramatic flick of his head.

  “I’ve seen the data, yes. Of course I’ve seen the data.”

  “Well, we’re not quite sure what to make of it; what’s your perspective, Doctor?”

  Bob’s shoulders collapsed. “Well, obviously I don’t have the complete data sets, and I have been busy and...”

  “Yes, but you’ve seen it; you must have some ideas of your own. Frankly, Bob, we’re stumped and we need all the help we can get on this.”

  Bob eyed Pat warily. He shifted from one foot to another. “Well, naturally. I am a team player, after all. But it’s not my field of expertise, you realize.”

  “What’s not, Bob?”

  “DNA analysis, obviously.”

  “Oh, I realize that, Bob, but sometimes a fresh perspective from outside is what’s needed to kick some life into the process. Your input might be just the sort of slant we’d need to get a bit of momentum.”

  “Well, of course I’d like to help.”

  “Well, Dr. Scholl, please allow me to share the results with you. They are most intriguing.”

  Pat produced the DNA data and laid it on his desk. Bob looked up and down them, and was no more the wiser than the first time he’d seen them. “Oh, I agree. Intriguing, yes.”

  “You can see this subject, ‘S’, a male. And you can see here that the mother’s DNA and the father’s DNA both confirm parentage.”

  “Yes, of course, it’s obvious.” Bob had missed that completely.

  Pat continued, “Now, if you look at the mitochondrial DNA, you can see that the mother’s does not match the child’s.”

  Bob knew this was supposedly impossible, but considered it wise not to say so. “Yes, I gathered as much myself.”

  “And you can see the father’s is a much closer match, but with some major differences here in this division.”

  “Yes, as I said, most intriguing,” Bob said, stroking his chin.

  “Well, we’re at a loss to explain it. Not a clue. Stuck. Can you explain it?” Pat slid the papers towards Bob, his smirk only barely concealed.

  “Hmm, there are many possibilities. One could be that there is a simple mix-up in the lab.”

  “Double and triple-checked, and eliminated.”

  Bob knew this, but equivocated, “Must be just a simple genetic aberration. Happens occasionally—an accident.”

  “Well, that’s certainly possible, Bob. Quite probable, in fact.”

  “Who is the patient?”

  “Ah, I can’t say. Confidentiality. Sorry.”

  “Not from your superior, Doctor. I need to know these subjects’ names.”

  “It’s immaterial, Doctor. Has no bearing whatsoever on the case.”

  Bob pinched his lips together till they turned white. He ground his teeth. He needed to snatch this thing out of Pat’s hands. He cast his eye over the papers again and said, “We publish.”

  Pat’s jaw dropped. “Publish? I’m not ready to publish on this, Bob. No peer-reviewed journal would touch it. Not at this stage, anyhow.”

  “Of course we are going to publish. Mitochondrial DNA inherited from the father? This is a monumental discovery. It’s a first.”

  “Actually, it’s happened several times that we know of, Bob,” Pat said smugly.

  Bob was taken aback, but recovered smartly. “Well, we’ll find an angle on it to make this on
e unique.”

  “But, but it’s too rough. We haven’t got anything worth publishing yet. Bupkis.”

  The ace fell from Bob’s sleeve. “What about that experiment you conducted with the volunteer and the lab rat in the sleep lab?” he asked. “Hmmm?”

  “Well, that was only remotely related, Bob. We’re still collecting data on that experiment in any case.”

  Bob pressed him. “What was your primary question in this sleep lab experiment?”

  “Well, it was a bit of a shot in the dark, to be honest, Bob.”

  “A ‘shot in the dark’? Dr. Roche, we don’t do shots in the dark around here. We do research. So what was it?”

  “What was what, Bob?”

  “The primary question! What did you hope to learn?”

  “Oh, we were wondering if the subject had an increased sensitivity to any residual odors emitted by bacteria.”

  “And this was your DNA subject also?”

  “It was,” Pat admitted reluctantly.

  “What was the result?”

  “Well, honestly, Bob, we didn’t come out of it with anything really new.”

  “You think this could be important? What are the resulting hypotheses?”

  “Well, hard to say. Like I said, it was just a shot in the dark. Just a toss of the dice, more than anything else. You know yourself, sometimes they pay off.”

  “Indeed, indeed.” Pay off... Bob’s eyes glazed over as the phrase rattled about in his head. “Were there any results at all from this experiment?” he asked again, dreamily.

  “Like I say, nothing we didn’t already know.”

  “And what was it you already knew?”

  “Well, there appears to be some sensitivity, all right. Some sort of increased olfactory awareness.”

  “I see. Well, I want a report on that experiment on my desk in the morning. And I wish to be kept abreast of any developments.”

  “Oh, certainly, Bob. First to know.” Pat gave him his trademark nod and a wink as Bob left, then raised a finger as the door swung closed.

  “Well, that went well,” Pat said to himself. “What kind of an eedjit am I? Anyways, no peer-reviewed publication could be interested in something as mad as this. Not unless they had the whole story, and I’ll just make very sure that don’t happen. Bob, though. That twat might do anything.”

  Pat slunk into his chair and sighed. “One thing’s for certain: Myron Pukowski’s life is about to become a living hell.”

  Twenty-two

  James was born to medicine, and Karen knew it. A fact that reverberated in her gut. For decades, she’d fanned the tiny embers of a vision: Doctor James Weems. Of course, the fallout from the never-ending conflict put paid to that. But like any good mother, she adopted as her mantra the phrase, “Whatever makes my son happy.” All the while, that little flame flickered away inside.

  So Karen invited her son to dinner at her favorite restaurant, a pseudo-colonial affair with unvarnished, butter-colored wooden floors and waiters with powdered white ponytails wearing shoes with huge buckles. She carefully prepared herself by swilling a pair of old-fashioneds, and was working on her third.

  “I know we talked about this before, but I wonder if I could convince you somehow to reconsider a medical career.”

  James pushed a leaf around his salad bowl and let the slightly slurred proposition sink in. “Nah, I can’t see it. I don’t know the first thing about all that stuff. And let’s face it, I’m not a kid any more,” he said.

  Karen snorted, and quite loudly, before muffling it with her napkin. “Age is all relative. Anyhow, you’re smart enough, I’m sure of that, but if you haven’t got the desire—”

  “I wish I did.”

  “What do you mean, you wish you did? Wishing indicates a desire, does it not?”

  James shrugged.

  “It does. You’re right there,” she said, raised her glass to him and took another drink.

  “What I’ve leaned about Rich’s life, well, it’s amazing. I’m just in awe of everything he did: his accomplishments, his passion. Compared to my life, I mean, it’s really something, isn’t it?”

  Karen tutted, “That’s nonsense, Jimmy. You chose to do something you loved, and look at you. You’re a son any mother would be proud of.”

  “Yeah, famous for drawing germs! And even that was by pure chance.”

  “Hardly by chance. Anyhow, that’s beside the point.” Karen paused. “You stuck to your guns until you got there. Look, you can do anything you want, and you know it. I know you know it. If you don’t want to do it, fine, but don’t you sit there and say you can’t.”

  “Maybe, but med school? At my age, and with the grades I got in high school? It’s moot; nobody would even look at me.”

  “You’re forgetting you have friends in high places. I could probably get you into U-P, but you could do this yourself if you wanted to.”

  “I was rotten at science in school. I didn’t have the brains for it.”

  “You were rotten because you had no interest. I have seen what you can do when you take an interest in something. You learned every discipline involved in art, and you restored that old motorcycle, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess. But that isn’t anywhere near as complicated as a human body. I mean, I go into that hospital and I see what you do. All those Greek and Latin names for everything, all those different diseases. It’s incredible.”

  “You start at the beginning and build. It all comes down to the basics. Look.” Karen took a pen out of her purse and drew a circle on the fine linen tablecloth. “Here’s a cell—the most basic unit of life.”

  James sighed, and turned his attention to her drawing. Karen labeled the membrane, then described its functions: how it controlled what went into and out of the cell, and how different chemicals unlocked little gates in the membrane. She knew he couldn’t resist a contraption, and the body is the ultimate machine. He put his elbows on the table and cradled his chin on the heels of his hands as she went on to describe the cell’s inner workings: how the mitochondria turned the chemicals into energy, and how the nucleus manufactured proteins from patterns on file, like a little milling machine.

  The waiter brought the main course, and eyed the drawing with overt disdain. “Wine, m’dam?” he asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  He poured half a glass, and she shook it until he filled it to the brim.

  “And for the gentleman?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The waiter set the bottle in an ice bucket, taking his time, and then silently flew away. The bare wood floors bounced their conversation around the room so anyone could hear. Karen was oblivious. James blushed. He didn’t like the place much, but his mother loved its “colonial charm”.

  When Karen wasn’t using her knife to cut her steak, she used its tip as a pointer. One by one, she revealed the basic mechanics of protein synthesis.

  “This is all pretty straightforward,” he said. I feel a little silly for not getting it in school, now.”

  “And of course you have seen all of this, close up, in a way that no other person has, not ever!”

  James had to admit, he had.

  “Are you beginning to see where you might have just a teensy advantage in med school?”

  James nodded sheepishly, and Karen wagged her finger, laughing. “A-ha.” She had another sip, and put on a serious face before continuing the lesson. “So now these proteins are floating around in the cell in what’s called the cytoplasm.”

  “Ugh, Latin.”

  “Well, Greek, in fact. Even a lot of the medical words in Latin have Greek origins. The Greeks were far ahead of the Romans in medicine, and the Roman physicians had no equivalent words for a lot of the things the Greeks discovered, so they used them either straight up or in a ‘Latinized’ form.”

  “Fascinating,” James said.

  “Well, it is fascinating to some people. Anyhow, it’s neither here nor there; they’re just words. You can
call them anything you like once you know how they work. Nobody else will know what the hell you’re talking about, of course.”

  “Like now?”

  “Be quiet and listen! The membrane then distributes the proteins around the body. They can be used for structure, like making keratin for your fingernails, or storing things in your body, or transporting molecules around. The list is pretty large.”

  James’ eyes rolled to the corner of his eye, as if he’d suddenly remembered something. “You know, a lot of this feels very familiar. Like I learned it somewhere before.”

  “Well, of course you did. You took biology.”

  “Yeah, I guess. Anyhow, it’s all amazing.”

  Karen beamed. “I know. The other students will have to make do with textbooks while you get front-row seats to this show. Nature itself is your playground, James.”

  “Yeah, well, I suppose that’d be an advantage.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She let that sink in, then quietly, tentatively said, “You know, if you went public with this, you could get whatever you want.”

  “I’ve thought of that. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being kinda selfish, but for now, I’d really rather not.”

  “I don’t blame you. It could be a nightmare. You’d be better known than the Pope, overnight. On the other hand, a lot could be learned from your condition.”

  “Well, one thing at a time.” James paused, and stared at a painting of some bewigged Founding Father on the wall before saying, “I’d be forty by the time I got out, though. And then there is the internship and all of that.”

  “Jimmy, darling, in eight years you’ll be forty anyhow.”

  ~* * *~

  The autumn air was as crisp as cut glass. It stretched the rust-red sails of the fourteen-ton sloop St. Ingrid, and shifted it through the Oresund’s whitecaps at a rate of knots. From behind, the dawn illuminated the way as the calm night passage from Kirkbakken drew to a close. Copenhagen glowed golden before St Ingrid’s prow.

  Havard Troelson, the skipper and sole occupant, manned the helm and guided her across the sundet, as the local sailors called the sound.

  Havard and Ingrid sailed past the famous giant Tuborg bottle, a handy landmark for old-timey sailors who couldn’t be bothered with things like GPS. Further on, he could see his office in the corner of the World Health Organization’s European headquarters peeking out between the neighboring buildings. He had fought hard and waited years for an office with a view of the sea. Promotion to Deputy Regional Director had brought it at last, as well as the power to move things in the organization more to his liking.