Chapter 21 - Iris
This morning I woke up with a lack of purpose and angry feelings, after the discoveries of the previous night. Now that I had learned that the molecule I thought I thought could be named after me was not mine at all I felt compelled to wipe away everything I had built and start all over again. And yet it seemed much easier to destroy what I had than to plan the reconstruction. If I gave up being a scientist what else could I become? I hated Cesar Mercury for what he showed me! He hadn’t deliberately wronged me, but that was no matter – he had laid my failure plain in front of me, regardless of what his intentions were. How did he dare try to encourage me after what he had done? As if I were a fool and didn’t understand that nothing makes sense anymore!
I was immersed in this state of mind and I was getting ready to go to the lab to dispose of all my samples, when the phone rang.
“Iris…”, the voice on the other end said, and paused
“Has something happened?”, I asked, surprised by the sadness in Cesar’s tone
“Yesterday…”, he began, and hesitated again
“Yes?”, I asked, waiting for him to continue
“Yesterday you lost all your faith in your work, and in yourself too, I saw it”, Cesar said at last
Of course I had! I didn’t reply and waited for him to conclude his thought
“Will you come to dinner at my place tonight?”, he asked, “To make up for yesterday…”
His tone was apologetic.
I was silent for a moment. I didn’t want to see Cesar or anybody else, but then I gave in and accepted the invitation.
“Thank you”, Cesar replied, with a tense gratitude in his tone that to me seemed excessive for the little condescendence I had shown. His transport irritated me. I felt numb and unable to empathize.
So here I am now, rushing my writing because I want to tell you about the events of the day, but I don’t have much time since I will have to get ready and see Cesar in a short while.
After I hang up on Cesar this morning I hastily left for the lab, where I ruthlessly engaged in destroying each sample and all material evidence of my failure. I was pouring the content of a bottle in the waste container when I noticed that Otto Hermes was standing on the door of the lab, with a startled look on his face.
“Good morning”, I said dryly, without interrupting my task
He didn’t speak or move for a moment, and continued staring at me with rounded eyes. I carried on as if he weren’t there, too angered and disappointed for social niceties.
“Iris, please stop this”, he said at last
“Why? So that you can have more samples to steal from me? For your information, they aren’t any good”, I snapped bitterly
“I wasn’t stealing your samples…”, he replied, producing from his bag some of the bottles he had previously taken from me and placing them on the counter
I laughed with abrasive irony.
“You do not understand. It does not matter that you have any of my samples, my samples are waste”, I said
“Let me explain, Iris…here, these are the results I obtained”, he said sheepishly, handing me some thickly written notes, “Do you have a moment to have a look at them?”
“What?”, I exclaimed
“Please…”, he repeated, pushing the notes towards me
I took the papers with a deliberate smirk on my face and began reading.
“I conducted these same analyses and reached the same conclusions. Good, we know how to run our tests correctly”, I commented sardonically
Otto observed me without speaking. I read further, and in those papers I found described, step by step, each of my discoveries. I shook my head in incredulity.
“This is simply impossible”, I told Otto, with genuine surprise now
He had certainly taken my sample, but there was no way that he could have taken my notes and my results because I treasured them with great care, and never once I had left them behind for someone else to read. But then how did this happen?
“What is impossible?”, Otto asked
“How could we have followed an identical logic? You are aware of this, I know it, don’t fool with me!”, I replied with skeptical defensiveness although I felt the ice starting to melt within me.
“Did we really follow an identical logic?”, Otto asked, rounding his eyes in astonishment. Then he laughed, and his laugher was full and mirthful, it glowed in his eyes.
“What makes you so happy?”, I asked, my tone soft now
“We had exactly the same thoughts!”, he exclaimed
“So?”, I asked again, as if this fact no longer stroke me as peculiar.
Otto kept laughing, and at last his happiness spilled into me, and I started to giggle too. Then Otto turned serious, and looked at me as he never had before.
“Iris, I saw you were stressed and I wanted to help you, but I knew you would have refused if I had openly offered to lend a hand. You are so proud”, he said, his eyes locked into mine
“May I inquire about your reasons for wanting to help? What made you doubt my ability to crack the problem?”, I retorted, my happiness giving way to anger
“I didn’t doubt you at all”, he replied with a frank face
“Then again, why help me?”, I insisted
“Because I love you, and I always have”, he said finally, lowering his eyes
I was too stunned to speak.
“I never dared tell you before, but I always have”, he repeated
“You know that what you and I discovered has already been found?”, I said, diverting the conversation
“How so? I combed all the literature and I never found anything resembling the molecule you produced!”, he exclaimed surprised
“That’s what I thought too till yesterday night, when somebody showed me a paper which described exactly, and I mean exactly, all my discoveries. All of them, I tell you, as if I myself had authored the paper”, I said, shaking my head and yet finally relieved to share my pain with someone who could understand it
“Can I see the paper?”, Otto asked
“Sure, if you wish”, I replied, pulling out of my bag the binder where I had placed it yesterday night and handing it to Otto
Otto opened it and lifted it close to his face, leafing through it.
“See?”, I asked, sure that his bugged eyes reflected the surprise for what he was reading, for the resemblance between my results and those described
“But there’s only blank pages in this binder…”, he commented after a while, with a confused expression
“Oh please!”, I exclaimed irritated, certain that he was playing a prank on me.
“You must have confused the binders”, he told me doubtfully, showing me the blank pages
I leafed through the binder the same way he had, incredulous.
Blank pages, nothing but blank pages.
“I swear I placed the paper in this binder yesterday night…”, I said, unable to fully trust my own words at this point.
“Do you recall the author? The title?”, asked Otto
I didn’t reply.
“If you do we could search the library’s database”, he suggested
I was suddenly troubled, afraid that I had invented everything. But Cesar did give me the paper and I will ask him about it tonight! Of course I remembered the title and author of the paper, but they didn’t exist in the library’s database.
“Forget about the paper. Will you have dinner with me tonight?”, Otto asked me
“No”, I replied curtly
“Why not? Please give me a chance, just one”, Otto said, with a peculiar stubbornness concealed under the pleading tone
“No, I will not forget about the paper and tonight I’ll find some answers from the person who gave it to me. Tomorrow can be our night, if you insist”, I replied, startled by my bluntness and by the surge of a sudden attraction I never felt before.
Otto smiled slyly.
“Then we have a deal”, he said
Now I will head to see Cesar, shamefaced for my inexplicable passions, my treacherous memories, my flickering sanity.