Chapter 5: Iris Luna
This morning stepping in the lab I found Otto Hermes crouched in front of the fridge, holding the bottle containing my Irissa Celata. He was studying the bottle with undivided attention, as if some profound truth about the compound might be revealed to him through visual observation. He was so immersed in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice my presence. So he was interested in my glycoside after all! Otto Hermes is an introvert fellow and I never had the chance to observe him without him knowing, and so I could not resist taking advantage of the situation out of mischievous curiosity. I took a step back, so that I was standing in a somewhat hidden position close to the door, from where I had a full view of Otto Hermes’ moves. After a while he appeared satisfied with the analysis of the bottle, and placed it back in the fridge with meticulous attention. I generally bring my lab book home with me because I sometimes re-read my annotations before going to bed when making plans for the next day, and because it is so important to me that I cannot get myself to leave it behind. Yesterday, however, I had forgotten it in the lab in my bubbly excitement. After closing the fridge, Otto Hermes turned a sidelong glance towards the part of the bench where I usually worked, and seeing my lab-book there he moved towards it. He observed the cover, with an attention almost similar to the one with which he had studied the bottle. It was hard to decipher his intentions, but his behaviour was most certainly peculiar. He traced the profile of the lab book cover with the index, and I thought he was about to open it when he suddenly turned, as if fearing or sensing my presence, and when he saw me standing on the door he started.
“Why”, he exclaimed, “I hadn’t seen you! Have you been there long?”
“No, not really…”, I replied, accompanying the words with a vague gest of the hand
Otto Hermes stood there in an oddly stiff position
“Are you all right?”, I asked
“Sure, why?”, he said, laughing, while straightening in a more natural posture
“Because I saw you stare at my bottle and then at my notebook and finally at me as if you had just seen three ghosts, that’s why!”, I exclaimed, laughing myself
Otto Hermes became serious and considered me for a moment, then he smiled again
“Yes, I hadn’t see that bottle in the fridge before and I was curious”, he said
I shrugged
“The bottle contains the compound I mentioned yesterday, but I had the feeling you weren’t interested”, I replied curtly, vaguely irritated by his attitude
“I am always interested, but I get often get caught in my own work and…”, he started
“Sure”, I interrupted, “but in case you ever want to know more just ask me, I will be happy to share”
“Yesterday you were taking a spectrum of the molecule, I noticed you were so excited about it. One of the labs where I work now has great equipment that could help you. Yesterday I was very much worried about my own work, I have been trying for so long and I am not getting great results. Sorry if am uncommunicative at times, it is the work that puts me in a certain state…”, Otto Hermes explained
“Ah Otto, we all go through such phases”, I said, feeling more sympathetic than a moment earlier
Otto Hermes tilted his head slightly, turning his palms upwards in a gest of patient surrender
“But if I can ever give you a hand I would be more than glad to”, I said, meaning it
He smiled
“Thank you…well, I’d better get going now, I have some experiments to run in another lab”
“Oh sure, good luck!”, I replied
When Otto Hermes left I took a quick glance around the room, feeling a cheerful urge to start the reactions I had planned yesterday and examine the behaviour of my Irissa Celata. When I took my lab-book, flipping the pages rapidly, a small piece of folded paper slipped out of it and twirled in an airy dance to the floor. It is not my habit to place loose papers in my lab book, so I picked up the note, intrigued. It looked somewhat yellowed, so I thought I had perhaps slipped it in the lab book very long ago, and then forgotten about it. When I unfolded it I first noticed the margins, neatly decorated with the petite blue flowers that are the first heralds of spring, the forget-me-nots. I have always loved these flowers above all others, and as a child I remember I used to decorate my assignment booklets with them at school. Then I read the note, written in blue ink, faded and blotted here and there.
Recipe for high blood pressure cure
Crack the shell of apricot kernels and extract their inner part, the almond-like soft core of the seeds. Soak them in fine liquor and bring to a boil, until a dense golden brown juice is obtained. Blend some honey in the syrup to contrast its bitterness and to please the patient’s palate.
Store the syrup in amber ampoules, to impede the decay of its curative properties.
Administer an amount of syrup no greater than a pin’s head daily to lower blood pressure. Never increase the dose! The extract is lethal at high doses.
Where did the note come from? It was surely not something I had written although I experienced a sense of recognition, as if I myself had composed the note in a time that now eluded my memory. The handwriting…no, it could not be mine. And yet it undeniably resembled mine, it could as a matter of fact be mine if I used a nib to write. Does this seem absurd? I know it does. I began to shiver when I realized the recipe was describing the old fashioned way of distilling amygdalin, the first cyanogenic glycoside I had synthesized, the ancestor of my Irissa Celata.
I wondered if this was a joke. Otto Hermes. He had been looking at my lab-book, perhaps he had placed the note in there, perhaps he would tell me in the next days and we would have a good laugh at it. And yet…how could he know about my love for the forget-me-not flowers and about amygdalin, and how could he emulate my own handwriting so closely?
I slipped the note back in the lab-book and sat awhile, fluctuating in an inexplicable altercation of emotions. At one moment I felt as if I had just set foot in an old surrounding, where I recognized each block, each pastry shop, each street sign, but the next moment I was shoved by turbid waves of uncertainty and deep sadness.
I cannot tell for how long I stood there in pensive stillness, but at a point a fan started and its sudden grumble shook me. Get to work and test the reactivity of Irissa Celata, that’s what I had to do. I looked at the watch on the wall: 8.30 a.m. already. Any other day at this time I would already be deep into my experiments.
In the previous months I had tested the reactivity of each cyanogenic glycoside I synthesized with water, to assess if they could spontaneously hydrolyze releasing hydrogen cyanide, the potent poisonous gas responsible for their toxicity.
I placed an amount as big as a headpin of my Irissa Celata in a flask and stirred, carefully collecting the gas exhaling from the mixture. Indeed, my Irissa Celata released hydrogen cyanide! There wasn’t much in the sample, but its signature was undeniably there. I repeated the experiment, increasing the temperature by 10 °C at a time. The results were predictable up to 90 °C, but then the unexpected happened! As soon as Irissa Celata made contact with water it evolved into a thorny creature, swollen into a size much larger than Irissa Celata in its original form, almost as large as the whole flask! The fascinating monster, the lunar lizard that had formed grew with each drop added, then all of a sudden it dissolved in deep blue swirls till all that was left in the flask was still liquid, tinted with a serene light blue shade. Once again I analyzed the gas evolving from the solution, and I found hydrogen cyanide, so much of it this time! But that’s not all, there was also something else, something unknown. What a wonderful joy it is when the magic of the elements surpasses one’s imagination, leaving one dazzled with playful wonder and tingling curiosity!
I spent the whole day investigating the nature of the mystery compound, swaying between sudden intuitions and the disillusionment of having made an erroneous guess.
As I ran one experiment after the other, the clock spun its arms and the day melt into a rarefied sunset tinged by fine shades of orange, and finally into a dusky melange of blues. When I caught a glimpse of the imminent change in the horizon I sat awhile to admire it. This is such a unique moment in the day, how can one overlook it? And this evening it occurred so fast…or perhaps it was I to have a skewed perception of time? When the sunset faded into the impinging night, I turned heavy with the weight of tiredness, as the sky deprived of the light became heavy with darkness. I closed my lab book, wrapped myself up with my warm coat and left, happy to be heading home and yet still bubbling with thoughts of what else I could attempt to discover more about the fruit of the encounter between Irissa Celata and water, that compound and its elusive nature!
I was distractedly wondering what I could have for dinner while still elaborating the experimental plan for the next day when I found myself in front of the Elizabeth Cross library. I looked at its old fashioned façade and suddenly the memory of the previous day and of my visit to the rare book section refluxed in my mind, and I remembered the book that had attracted me and unsettled me so. What was the title? Yes, “The mercurial soul: an unusual odyssey of mysteries”. I stood at the entrance, looking up at the blown-glass windows, the columns fashioned in the classical Greek style, the reassuring austerity of the building. And, once again, I felt compelled to enter. Don’t, I told myself without knowing why, while my feet walked past the library’s door despite my resistance, and brought me to the rare book collection room. I instinctively headed to where the book, that book, was. I immediately found it. I took it off the shelf and stroked its scarlet cover with the tip of my fingers. It felt good to the touch. There were but few people in the room, and the spot where I had sat the day before was empty. I headed there, and when I opened the book the page was the last one I had read the day before. Was this a coincidence? I told myself that one can make-believe too many fantasies after spending most of one’s time alone. And yet…and yet I had the distinct feeling that the book was talking to me, that it was meant for me. Use your own judgment to decide if I am right. Here is what the book said.
The multiform nature of mercury is best manifested through its daughter compound, its poisonous salt, engendered by the reaction with the burning chemical known as thiocyanic acid. This poisonous salt is denominated mercury thiocyanate, and it carries in its name the memory of both its acidic mother and its mercurial father. Beware, this salt differs in nature from sophic salt! Since mercury cyanide descends from thiocyanic acid it carries the burn within itself, it blisters the vital organs with abrasive violence to the point of death. It cannot give birth to the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life!
Since mercury cyanide carries the burn within itself, it is during the proof of fire that it expresses its own nature and the nature of its parent compounds. When touched by the heat of a vivid flame, mercury thiocyanate will outgrow itself, twisting with rage like an evil snake liberated by a spell, and evolve into a terrifying animal, large, monstrous and in all aspects horrendously dissimilar from the original compound. Thus, exposed to the purifying fire, mercury and cyanate will reveal their cruelty and their greatness, the masculine potency, and the chameleon’s personality which inspires a dual feeling of mesmerized awe and profound revulsion.
Sitting here in my small attic I sense odd vibrations in the air, which I cannot decipher. The full moon is looking at me through the window, and I look at her in return, trying to read the reflection of the future on her eternal face. With the distinctive enigmatic imperturbability of an Egyptian sphinx she seems to know secrets spoken with so light a whisper no human ear can detect them. Please tell me, I beg her without words, but a silent good night wish and a poised smile is all I get for an answer.