Bizet’s Pearl Fisher duet washed over Rebecca at 7:00 a.m. Saturday. She lay there spellbound, transported by the rousing voices of two tenors issuing from the radio and filling the room — she didn’t know who they were, she didn’t care; she just loved the music. Until it stopped and she remembered.
Even after a year, every time she woke up alone in her queen-size bed an ache bloomed in her chest. During the week she was too rushed to think. But on weekends, when she had the luxury of lying still upon waking, languorous beneath the covers, the first thing that filtered into her consciousness was the empty space beside her. She ran her hand along the cool, vacant expanse of sheet. David. Red hair, impish smile. Warm hand in the small of her back. His face rose in the air like the morning, like the music. Go away, she thought. No point loving a dead man. Rolling over, she turned off the radio.
At least she had something to do today. No more time to think. She stumbled into the shower and let the steady hum of the water take her over. Mindlessly, she massaged the shampoo into her dark mass of hair, which had grown too long. She hated going to the hairdresser.
While she was rinsing, she thought of Nesha, the only man she had let into her life since David had died. He was coming in a few weeks during the American Thanksgiving. Thursday to Sunday, he said. Then he had to fly to Boston to eat a holiday dinner Sunday evening with his son’s girlfriend’s family.
Their long-distance relationship suited Rebecca. He was on the same far edge of the continent as her parents. Any further and they’d fall off. Though he was in San Francisco and they were a long day’s drive south in Santa Barbara, the winter haven of snowbirds who could afford it. Once a month he’d fly to Toronto, and they would spend happy long weekends together. She didn’t know anyone else like him. He swaggered like a biker in his cracked leather jacket, but he was an accountant. They had a history together, meeting when his elderly cousin, Rebecca’s patient, had been killed in the spring. They had each delved into her death separately. During the process of uncovering the layers of truth and memory, they had discovered each other. She had been astonished that she could still love someone. Perhaps it was Nesha’s own wounded heart that drew her, the murder of his family during the war while he was a boy. She saw that boy in him still, despite the age difference between them. What was it — fifteen years?
She dressed carefully for the trip downtown. A day among her peers called for a skirt and pantyhose. She found a tweed jacket that made her look academic. And low-heeled pumps for the trek on public transit.
She got off the subway at Union Station, then crossed to the other side of Front Street where the Royal York lay in a regal pile. It was one of the series of luxurious hotels the Canadian Pacific Railway had built across the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Despite the nippy November morning, she remembered a summer long ago when she and David had vacationed in Alberta and stayed at another CP hotel, the Banff Springs. As they drove toward it, from the distance she thought they had stumbled into a fairy tale: glittering above the fir trees, a rambling many-storied and -peaked castle threw giant shadows on the backdrop of mountains. It was the second year they were married. When she thought they would go on forever. Only hotels, it seemed, went on forever.
She stepped up to the mezzanine level of the Royal York and followed the crowd into the conference room. By the doorway, a sign on a tripod read “Updates for General Practitioners,” the logos of three drug companies set tastefully in the lower right corner.
Long, narrow tables covered with white cloths had been placed width-wise from front to back in the huge room, with an aisle down the middle. Several people stood near a lectern at the front.
She nodded and smiled at a few familiar faces, kept walking forward to the front and the only available seats. Picking up one of the many free pens scattered on the table, she read the plastic surface: “Vipranol: Hassan Pharmaceuticals,” paired with the emblem of a snake. Vipranol. She had never heard of it. The lunch speaker would, no doubt, enlighten her.
At nine, one of the organizers spoke into the microphone, introducing the first speaker, a respirologist. In her notepad Rebecca wrote down the date and subject of the lecture.
The man began: “No doubt, you have all noticed in your practice the increased incidence of asthma among children. Whereas asthma was relatively rare a scant twenty years ago ...”
By 11:45 a.m., she had heard three lectures and scribbled fifteen pages of notes, which she hoped she could decipher when she got home.
She followed the throng into the banquet hall and found a seat at one of the round tables.
Waiters served them a salad, a choice of chicken or fish, and a trifle for dessert. After the servers had come around with coffee and tea, a middle-aged man coughed into the microphone. The chatter in the room diminished to a low buzz.
“It is my great pleasure to introduce our guest speaker, Dr. Mustafa Salim, the chairman of Hassan Pharmaceuticals. His company has done brilliant, innovative work with snake venom, and he has come to North America to give a series of lectures on that research in the interest of scientific exchange. He’s in Toronto to collaborate with Connaught Labs on a special project. The founder of Hassan Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Mohammed Hassan, is an advisor to the president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, and was recently at Camp David with U.S. President Carter during the historic accord between Egypt and Israel. We’re very lucky to have Dr. Salim here with us today. Let’s give him a warm welcome. Dr. Mustafa Salim.”
Polite applause. Dr. Salim stepped in front of the microphone and peered at his audience over reading glasses. Dark intelligent eyes. A high-coloured complexion, rather than brown. Not what she expected an Egyptian to look like. His brown hair lay in short waves, abundant for a man of maybe sixty.
“Thank you. Very kind. It’s delightful to be here. Canadians are such a reasonable, enlightened people, it’s always a pleasure to come here.”
She had never heard an Arab accent before. Nasal and guttural at the same time. Very cultivated. Also not what she expected. He spoke slowly and deliberately, sure of himself.
“When I say to you ‘Egypt,’ what do you think of? The pyramids. The Sphinx. The desert. They are miraculous, of course, and, God willing, they will last forever. Inshallah is what we say in my religion. ‘If God is willing.’ But I am a modern Egyptian, and as much as I love the pyramids, I want more for my country.
“And you will be much amused, gentlemen — and ladies — that my method is based on an ancient creature that has killed people in the desert for millennia. A mutant species of the genus Vipera, a kind of desert viper that is quite beautiful, an almost velvety sandy green colour. Beautiful but dangerous. Like some women.”
The women glanced at each other; the men cleared their throats. He was a dinosaur, thought Rebecca. But a charming one.
“This desert viper produces venom that would kill an adult, if, God forbid, the adult were unfortunate enough to offer himself to be bitten. What exactly is snake venom? It’s a toxic saliva made up of enzymes, mostly proteins. According to their principal clinical effects, the venoms are classified as either neurotoxic, that is, attacking nerve tissues and interfering with the transmission of nerve impulses, or haemotoxic, attacking the blood and circulation system. To date, venom has been used medicinally in the production of anti-venom. But we have taken a giant leap ahead of that science and have produced a drug that has an analgesic effect on pain using the neurotoxic type of venom. We theorized that if neurotoxic venom interferes with the transmission of nerve impulses, then maybe we could manipulate minute amounts of venom to interfere with the transmission of pain along those nerve impulses.
“There were many hurdles along the way. Snakes do not create a lot of venom. For them, it’s a precious commodity that requires energy and time to produce. Since they paralyze their prey with it, most snakes will not expend it needlessly. It’s their principal means of obtaining food. Of course there are short-tempered varieties that will inject you with poison on principle — if they feel you’ve stepped into their territory, for instance. Not so different from some people.”
Polite titters.
“Because of this conservation on their part, if you ever get bitten by a poisonous snake, the chances of actually getting injected with venom are only fifty percent.
“We have established a snake farm where the workers ‘milk’ the venom. Despite the term, milking a snake for venom bears no resemblance to the milking of a cow or a goat. It requires a highly specialized skill and experience. And very fast reflexes. It’s not easy to find people to do this kind of work. But once they start, they see that snakes are all God’s creatures and come to love them. One gram of dried venom requires the milking of fifteen snakes.
“One of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had was the summer I spent in a lab overlooking a harbour in Cape Cod where fishermen catch squid for the scientists there. You are all familiar with the squid nerves used in neurological research?”
He peered up, momentarily scanning the audience, some of whom nodded.
“The squid’s nerve fibre, the giant axon, is much thicker than ours. It looks like a thick piece of fishing line. For that reason it offers unequalled opportunities for experimentation, even if all the work must be done before the axon dies, within two hours of dissection. We made great strides using the squid as a test paradigm for our venom.
“After years of hits and misses, trying to understand the basic process, we’re encouraged by our latest results. Extensive findings show that our new drug, Vipranol, has an analgesic effect on pain caused by cancer, multiple sclerosis, and arthritis.”
Everyone in the room was turned toward him, absorbed in the exotic details he offered in his emphatic yet lilting voice. He segued into specifics about the buffers they used in the lab and their methods of keeping the preparation stable. Though Rebecca found her attention drifting at the description of technique, she saw some of the doctors at her table taking notes.
When Dr. Salim stopped speaking, everyone applauded with enthusiasm. A few people stepped up to the podium to ask him questions.
Rebecca stood up on weary legs. She was having trouble sleeping at night, more so on weekends, and found her energy flagging by afternoon.
Two of the organizers stood chatting off to one side. As she pushed her chair in, she noticed a short elderly man, his grey-brown hair wind-tossed, pass her on his way to Dr. Salim, who was gathering his notes at the podium. The man stood out in his navy parka, as if he’d just come in off the street. The doctor towered over him.
The man didn’t look like a colleague. She kept watching: he spoke too quietly for her to hear, but what he said must have caught Dr. Salim’s attention, because his ruddy face turned pale. The doctor answered something Rebecca didn’t understand, since it wasn’t English. It wasn’t Arabic either. How unlikely, she thought. It sounded like German.
Dr. Salim looked around suddenly as if to see whether anyone had heard him. His eyes fell on Rebecca.
She pretended to be searching for something in her handbag. When she looked up again he was still watching her, sideways now, at the same time conversing in low tones with the man. The doctor looked apprehensive, but she couldn’t tell whether it was a reaction to the man or to what he was saying. Did he want her to approach and interrupt? Was that the meaning of the expression she saw on his face?
Then the other man noticed her. He handed Dr. Salim a business card, abruptly turned on his heels, and walked across the room to the exit.
Dr. Salim watched him, then walked away from the podium, notes in hand, and headed to a distant door. But he seemed to change his mind, glanced at her, and shifted direction, stepping toward her.
Shaking his head, he said, “In Egypt that would never happen. People can complain about armed guards, but at least they keep people like that out.”
Surprised at being spoken to, but curious, she asked, “What did he want?”
“You didn’t hear?” He watched her shrug. “Just someone off the street with an axe to grind. Not everyone likes doctors.”
“Maybe you should report it to the hotel.”
He smiled, observing her. “Well, you know, Dr. ...”
“Rebecca Temple.”
“I think, Dr. Temple, he just needed to get it off his chest.”
His dark eyes watched her with an interest that flattered but puzzled her.
Suddenly the two organizers chatting in the corner bestirred themselves and rushed to their guest star. Rebecca excused herself and walked to the door, feeling the man’s eyes upon her.