French Fried

“What’s this I hear about my wife being repeatedly swept into the arms of Martin the Norman?” I asked. “Now the conferees think we’re both having affairs with graduate students.”

“Martin was preventing me from going up and down stairs.” She’d been lying on the bed reading. “Actually, I wanted to try stairs to see if I could.”

“She was trying to keep me from being shot. You should be grateful, too. What’s this?” Carolyn had just handed me a manila envelope.

She rolled off the bed and walked over to the door that led to our cement-walled patio. “Look at the sky, Jason. More clouds are gathering. I got a wonderful picture of the cathedral with that same sky behind it. Positively menacing.”

“That reminds me, Bertrand and Nicole Fournier want us to meet them at La Fourchette. They say a member of the Hiely-Lucullus family runs it, but it’s less expensive and close by. They have reservations, but the way the weather’s looking, maybe we should stay here.”

“L’Horlage doesn’t serve dinner, and we have umbrellas.” She pulled the drapes across the door as if hiding the sky would change my mind.

I mentioned the danger of falling on wet pavement, damage to the orthopedic boot, which was undoubtedly going to cost us something excessive, and damage to her new shoe. Arguing with Carolyn didn’t work; she had plastic boots to cover her shoe, called downstairs to get a plastic garbage bag to tie over the orthopedic boot—evidently they liked her, because they sent one up—and then she promised to cling to my arm so that she wouldn’t fall.

While I was picturing both of us falling in a heavy rainstorm, I examined the manila envelope, which contained a chemistry paper in its early stages. The drawing of the compound on the second page was so interesting that I immediately sat down to read.

When the garbage bag arrived, my wife gathered clothes for the evening and went into the bathroom to tie the bag around her knee, thus protecting the boot while she took a shower. The paper described the synthesis of the molecule pictured, plus notes on possible medical applications for a dilute solution of the stuff. It had a French name with which I was unfamiliar.

When Carolyn limped out of the bathroom a half hour later, looking very pretty except for the boot under her skirt, she announced that the garbage bag had been a great success, and she felt much better for having had a shower. “Sponge baths are very unsatisfactory.”

My wife is given to frequent bathing, changing of clothes, and washing said clothes. “This is a fascinating piece of work,” I told her. “A compound I’ve never seen before with excellent medical applications when dilute enough to be nontoxic.”

“Of course. Why would anyone send me a paper that wasn’t about toxins? Who did the work, by the way? There’s no name.”

“Martin brought it over, but it’s Catherine’s experiment.” Instead of sitting down, or putting on the shoe that balanced her boot, she stared at me anxiously.

“Jason, you can’t do that. I don’t think Catherine knows he copied it and brought it to you. You’d get him in trouble. What’s the name of the compound?”

“It’s something in French. I don’t recognize the word, but it’s very strange that her graduate student would bring you a stolen copy of her research. Maybe you misunderstood.”

“Maybe,” said my wife, and reminded me that I should take my shower if we were to arrive on time at the restaurant. She was right, and I went in, only to find the floor as covered with water as the floor of that bathroom in Lyon had been. However, this one had never flooded before. Still, I made no complaint, imagining the difficulties of showering while wearing a garbage-bag-wrapped orthopedic boot.

When I’d finished, I returned to the room to see Carolyn staring at the screen of her computer with the research papers in her hand. “Jason,” she said, looking up, “this compound is tetrodotoxin.”

“No, really,” she continued, sounding peeved. “I compared the drawing I downloaded to my computer to the one in the paper. They match atom for atom.”

“Will you look? She’s the person who tried to kill us. She didn’t have to find fugu. She made the toxin herself.”

I looked, and the molecules did match, but the idea that Catherine put fish toxin in our pâté—well, I didn’t believe that for a minute. “Two points, my love,” I said. “Well, three. First, you’ve decided that it was a terrorist. Second, Catherine wasn’t in Avignon when you were pushed down those stairs, and third, that research is medical in nature. The compound in dilute solution holds promise to relieve all kinds of pain—that of recovering heroin addicts, and intractable arthritis pain, for instance.”

“Fine, Jason. Just promise me that first, you’ll keep away from her; and second, you won’t get Martin in trouble by telling her that he stole the research—he was trying to help us—and third, I’ll never forgive you if you talk to her about this research no matter how wonderful you think it is. I—well, I need to check some things out.”

Carolyn wouldn’t put her knee-highs or her new shoe or her jewelry on until I gave her my word. Since we hadn’t cancelled on the Fourniers, the weather had cleared, and they’d be waiting for us, I gave in and promised to stay away from Catherine. What else could I do?