Free An Imperfect Lens by Anne Richardson Roiphe Page A

Which was how Eric Fortman found himself walking along rue Memphis with the servant a few steps behind and telling his new friend all about the wonders of birds seen at sea who seem never to alight but always to float on drafts of air. “Ah,” said Mrs. Malina, “I wouldn’t mind being such a bird myself.” It was not surprising, then, that he found himself in a room in the Malina house, changing into borrowed clothes (a son departed for other parts) that did not quite fit, feeling, if not at ease, at least comforted. He was distressed that he did not have even one bottle of Glen MacAlan scotch to offer in return for his dinner.
    LOUIS THUILLIER WALKED down the street and nearly stepped on a small boy with flies stuck to his eyes, which seemed to be oozing a yellow pus. The child held out his hand and mumbled. Louis did not understand his words, but what was the need of that? He would have given the child a coin, but he didn’t want to step closer. Instead he hurried off, eager to forget the lines of dirt in the small extended hand. In the alley he saw the coconut shells and fish heads of a discarded meal and a brown fluid that smelled of human waste running like a slow stream across the cobblestones. He saw a woman with no teeth and a bent back moving toward the corner, carrying a bundle of sticks. He saw a woman with a naked baby in her arms, with a scar across her cheek and a soiled apron. He had seen the men in Paris living beneath the bridges. He had seen the old crone in his hometown who hissed at the children and seemed to have a beard. He had seen misfortune and calamity, but never before had he been in a place where the air smelled so unclean and the dark looks and hollow eyes and scabby skins seemed so open, so insistent, so common. Someone, he thought, should be taking care of these people. Where were the street sweepers, the lamplighters, the Sisters of Mercy, the signs of compassion that keep most of the starving out of sight. Where were the hospitals and the doctors to aid the poor. Here was a city by the sea in which all was washed clean, from which Darwin had claimed life itself began, and here everything was soiled, things left where they were dropped. He stepped across a mound of feces left by a horse or a donkey. Wash yourself, he wanted to yell at a little girl who was sucking on her fingers.
Ya, ya,
came the call of a donkey boy urging his beast to move faster.
    WHEN HE RETURNED to the hotel, he joined Roux and Nocard at a table in the garden. Roux was holding his beard tightly, a sign of trouble. Nocard was trying to coax a starling from a nearby bush to come a little closer. Roux handed a telegram to Thuillier.
    KOCH HAS SENT WORD TO THE SCIENCE ACADEMY IN BERLIN THAT HE IS MAKING PROGRESS. ARE YOU ALSO? SPEED ESSENTIAL. PASTEUR.
    Louis read the telegram. He bit his lip. He refilled his pipe and cradled the bowl in his hands.
    Even under the central fan in the hotel lobby, he felt the Alexandrian summer heat. It was in his ears and made his mouth dry and his fingers stiff and his palms wet. His eyes were rimmed with dust, and his black hair was damp across his forehead. “This stupid country,” he said. “It’s filthy.”
    Nocard took one of his big hands and patted Louis on the shoulder. “There are worse,” he said.
    Louis puffed at his pipe. “I will never again leave France.”
    In the kitchen of the hotel, the fourth assistant to the cook was pouring scalding water over the silverware. She splashed a spoonful on her arm and put down her bucket to look at the small burn mark that appeared on her skin. Then she removed a knife and fork from the sink, thinking they had been washed along with the plate that accompanied them. In fact they had simply been cleaned almost to perfection by the person who had eaten his breakfast sausage hours earlier. The silverware was placed in a large drawer. The plate was stacked in a wire crib.
    ALBERT HAD NOT been invited, although this made no difference