The Art of Forgetting (11 page)

              “Look,” Lloyd smiled as he spoke, “one mouse died, well after the study period ended. There’s no reason to believe it was as a result of our treatment.”

              “But you failed to mention it in your report,” Erin said.

              “I didn’t see how it was relevant.”

              Mrs. Devine made a face that made her look as though she had swallowed a bad oyster. She lifted a pen off the table top and wrote something on a yellow legal pad.

              Lasko leaned forward and spoke in a grave tone, “Forgive me, Dr. Copeland. Let me try to understand. You were not going to inform the committee of a serious, unanticipated adverse event in one of your animal subjects and you expect us to approve your petition to proceed with trials on
human
volunteers?”

              Lloyd slipped the lighter back in his pocket. He placed his hands flat on the table and took a deep breath. “First of all, there’s no reason to think this unanticipated event is a result of the treatment. Lab mice die sometimes, of natural causes. For all we know it died of appendicitis or… pneumonia or bad Chinese take-out. Any number of things not related to the injection it received
months
ago. Second, I couldn’t have possibly mentioned it in my petition because it happened after I had already submitted it to the board.”

              “But you could have forwarded an addendum,” Erin said.

              “There is nothing to tie the mouse’s death to the conjugated prion.” Lloyd raised his voice a notch.

              “Still,” Erin said, “an addendum should have been forwarded to-”

              “Saying what? Make a donation in lieu of flowers?”

              Mrs. Devine’s eyes bulged out even farther. She scribbled feverishly on her legal pad. Dr. Sengupta lifted her gaze to look at Erin and bobbed her head timidly, a mortified expression stamped on her face.

              “Dr. Copeland,” Lasko said, “We want to encourage your participation in these proceedings but it doesn’t help if you keep interrupting. Please continue, Dr. Kennedy.”

              “The committee is willing to overlook your failure to notify it of this… development, as long as you agree to submit a written addendum complete with autopsy results on the mouse in question within a week,” Erin said.

              Lloyd looked around the room. Bender wore a pained smile, his hands clasped together on the table as if in prayer. Lloyd thought he saw him nod his head but it was a barely perceptible movement if he had.

              “Fine. Consider it done,” Lloyd said. “So, when can I start my trials?”

              “The board will not consider your petition until the addendum is filed and the matter is fully investigated,” Erin said.

              Lloyd slapped his palm on the table, leaned back in his chair and exhaled. The moment he had been working towards for so many years was tantalizingly close. The start of human trials meant crossing the elusive threshold that would lead directly to the cure he had dreamed of developing:
his
cure, his obsession, his salvation. Now, it seemed, someone was hell-bent on trying to take it all away from him. And standing right in his way was a curious creature who had tracked him down from his childhood as if there were an unpaid debt to settle.

              “There are other concerns, Dr. Copeland,” Mrs. Devine said in a gravelly voice as she fondled a copper pendant the size of a Ping-Pong ball that dangled from her necklace. “The idea of injecting prions in human volunteers gives us pause. How can we be sure they won’t get Mad Cow disease?”

              Lloyd gazed at the woman and completed the picture of her in his mind’s eye. He imagined a fox stole around her neck, puffs of cigarette smoke escaping from the corner of her mouth, her teeth clenching a long, narrow cigarette holder made of elephant tusk, even a monocle perched in front of her eye – why not? 
You’re the mad cow
! he wanted to say.

              “That’s the sort of question I might expect to hear from a first-year medical student ranked in the bottom third of the class,” Lloyd said, “but not from a university review board entrusted to make decisions on the direction of scientific research.”

              “Do you care to address the concern?” Erin asked.

              “Let me tell you
my
concerns,” Lloyd said, leaning into the table. “My concern is that key decisions on the viability of my research, of my life’s work, will be made by people who never took an upper level science course in college.” His gaze was fixed on Erin.

              “Alright, let’s all take a deep breath,” Dr. Bender said. “Look Lloyd, no one here is trying to quash your research.”

              “Could have fooled me.”

              “Moreover,” Lasko said, “you might want to familiarize yourself with the National Research Act of 1974.” Lasko shuffled some papers and extracted a single sheet from a fat file. “Particularly with Title 45 of Federal Regulations Part 46 which stipulates that Institutional Review Boards must be composed of at least five members, they cannot all be members of the same profession. They must comprise at least one scientist and at least one non-scientist, and must include at least one person who is not affiliated with the university.”

              Lasko slid the document on the surface of the table towards Lloyd. “The membership of this board was selected more carefully than you may think,” he said.

              “Lloyd, the board finds your research very promising,” Dr. Bender said, “which is precisely why it’s so important that we follow protocol to a tee. All we’re proposing is a short delay. The alternative would be to deny your petition outright. And no one wants that.”

              “I’ll get you the damn addendum.”

              “Great,” Lasko said. “Then it’s settled. If it’s on my desk by next week we can plan to meet again by the end of the month. Maybe even sooner.”

              Lloyd pushed back his chair and got to his feet, ignoring the committee members who rose to shake his hand. He left without saying a word. He walked out of the administrative suite and reached a bank of elevators where a young man in a wrinkled short white coat stood waiting, his pockets brimming with a stethoscope, a reflex hammer, a tuning fork and a pocket eye chart. Lloyd pressed the button on the wall which was already alit.

              “Hello, Dr. Copeland.”

              Lloyd gave the young man a do-I-know-you look.

              “Stuart Mills. I’m on the neurology clerkship.”

              “Why else would you walk around with a tuning fork?  I know who you are, Mills.”

              Lloyd turned his attention to the digital number display next to the elevator door.

              “I found the articles,” the student said. He rubbed his palms together. “On the evolutionary benefits of prions… you know, like in yeast. And then I found the studies on Aplasia.”

              “Ap
lysia
. Aplysia californicum, the sea slug. Aplasia is something completely different.”

              “Yeah, that’s what I meant,” the young man said with a nervous smile and shifted his feet. “So that’s what you’re doing, right? You inject prions in mice, they enter the brain cells, change the conformation of proteins in the cytoplasm, and they all stack up on each other like plastic chairs or toy bricks or something, to stabilize the nerve cells… and then there was something about templates… and synapses, of course.”

              The elevator door opened and the two men stepped on. Mills stood next to Lloyd, thereby violating the unwritten hospital canon which dictates that one must stand as far away as possible from the other sole occupant of an elevator, particularly if the other sole occupant is an attending physician and one is just a lowly medical student of the variety that doesn’t possess nice breasts.

              “That’s it, right?” Mills said. “You’re using prions to change the shape of brain cell proteins, to stabilize synapses and… solidify long-term memory.”

              “And you know what that would mean?”

              “What?” the student asked.

              “No more stupid card tricks on rounds.”

              Lloyd pressed the button for the fifth floor and the elevator doors started to shut. When they had nearly met in the middle, a black leather notebook jutted between them. The elevator doors clunked together and bounced open again.

              Erin stepped onto the elevator with a smug smile. “Gotcha!” She lit up number four on the call panel and positioned herself on the side of the elevator opposite Lloyd. Mills looked at her like a fat boy looks at a hamburger.

              “Seems you have a knack for that,” Lloyd said.

              “What’s that?” asked Erin.

              “Obstructionism.”

              Erin smiled revealing a deep dimple on her cheek. “Now, now, Dr. Copeland, don’t get your briefs all tied up in a knot.”

              Lloyd glanced at the medical student who was still gawking at Erin and by all appearances had already undressed her with his eyes, dressed her up again in a see-through teddy and accessorized her with knee-high leather boots and a bull whip.

              “Speaking of which,” Lloyd said with a smile, “do you happen to be wearing the same peach panties I saw you in last time?”

              Mills tried to look impassive but he made a loud gulping sound as he swallowed.

              Erin laughed. “Gee, Dr. Copeland, what makes you think I’m wearing panties at all?”

              The elevator door opened.

              “Ciao, Lloyd,” Erin said, and swaggered off the elevator and down the corridor with a deliberate feline sassiness. Both men leaned their heads as the elevator doors shut, then straightened without saying a word.

              The elevator reached the next floor. As the doors opened the medical student cleared his throat. “Dr. Copeland?”

              “Yeah?

              “You’re my hero.”

              When Lloyd entered the lab, Kaz was filling water dispensers from the spout of a fifteen gallon plastic jug that bore a handwritten inscription in black marker on masking tape: 
DO NOT DRINK!  For research animals only
.

              Kaz was wearing a scrub top over faded jeans. He had the stocky chiseled build acquired through the wielding of shovels and pick-axes that so often eludes health club buffs who flex chromed barbells in air-conditioned lofts. He was pushing the rubber plunger that held the ball-valve metal spout back onto a freshly filled dispenser when Lloyd leaned with his back on the counter next to him and folded his arms.

              “So, how did it go?” Kaz asked.

              Lloyd said nothing. Kaz grabbed another dispenser and began to fill it. Once topped off, he forced its top on.

              “What happened?” Kaz said

              “Who did you tell about Wolfgang?” Lloyd asked.

              “Well, let’s see. First I sent a telegram to my cousin Vladislav in Minneapolis. I thought he should be first to know. Then I posted the news on Twitter and Facebook. That was after I talked to that reporter from Channel 5 News. Finally, I couldn’t help myself so I ran around the hospital screaming, ‘Wolfgang is dead!  Wolfgang is dead!’”

              Kaz filled another water dispenser.

              “You sure you didn’t tell anyone?”

              Kaz shoved the rubber top onto the dispenser with force to spare.

              “Lloyd, you tell me to do something and I do it. Okay?  Happily, without complaining, but please, Lloyd,” Kaz lifted a thick finger, “don’t be condescending. This is not the Red Army.”

              Kaz turned his attention to the water dispensers again.

              “They knew, Kazimir. At the IRB meeting, they knew Wolfgang died. The human trials are on hold.”

              Kaz shrugged his shoulders and kept working.

              “Did you send him for the autopsy?” Lloyd asked.

              “Fuck you, Lloyd!  I give my life to this laboratory, to these mice, to your fucking project. You have no right to accuse me.”

              “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

              “Oh no?” Kaz slapped the top of the water jug. “I buy filtered water for the mice, bring them fresh vegetables that I plant and pick with my own two hands just so they can have a better life.”

              “You do a great job, Kaz.”

              “So I don’t need this…”

              “You’re doing important work,” Lloyd said. “I can’t do this without you, comrade. I need your help to figure this out.”

              Kaz nodded. He placed the filled water dispensers in a plastic tub and carried it to the corner of the laboratory where the mouse cages were arranged in tidy rows.

              “Did you send him for the autopsy?” Lloyd asked.