Free The Sun Chemist by Lionel Davidson Page A

available to Israel a complete high-octane fuel.
    In this connection, the findings with the saline water are of the utmost significance. This drain [strain?] extensively in the Negev with minimum cultivation at no cost to us in potable water or otherwise cultivable land.
    The benefits only begin here. For half my life I have found all contests with the oil companies to have a predetermined end in the question of an alternative supply of raw materials. Here for the first time a determined attempt may be made, a working model for the world. Our teams of workers can make the poorest areas of Africa and Asia independent of oil wells.
    The next decade will show not only great increase in production from Arab oil-fields and those still to be found, but explosive advance in the field of petro-chemicals. It is possible to visualize a situation where the economies of even the developed countries may be dependent in a large degree on Arab oil, a situation with grave consequences for us. To my suggestion with regard to Egypt, I add …
    A page or two of political reflection followed, very disjointed, with some further trouble about his teeth, and then a single cryptic paragraph.
    I have been thinking. Perhaps the Bradford people will be able to let us know. I will think again later. That German would make a cat laugh. Never mind, he will prove the best internationalist of us all. It’s a funny world. We will celebrate the holiness of the day.
    There was no more that day, except some tantrum to do with his food. He’d had a sudden desire for chutney, and then wouldn’t take it; his every remark by now was being noted, the end near. The following evening. November 8th, he went intoa coma, and he died at six on the morning of the ninth. I could imagine the nurse, listening to his breathing, running in at the door. Nellie now trotted through it.
    ‘Mr Weisgal would like to talk to you, Igor. He is on the phone to Mr Meltzer now.’
    I went through to Julian’s room, and after a moment or two was handed the phone.
    ‘Igor? Weiss tells me he explained to you.’
    ‘Well, yes, he did. He explained a bit, Meyer.’ My head was throbbing evilly. ‘I am just going through some papers he gave me.’
    ‘He has a further point. He asks where Vava got these potatoes in the first place, how he even came to deal with such things. That’s very interesting, eh?’
    ‘Well, it is,’ I said, ‘I suppose, in a way.’
    ‘It raises the question of locating Vava’s other correspondence – not just with Weizmann. Weiss says he had many friends in London. What I am thinking, this Joe of yours there, he could initiate some work in that direction.’
    ‘He’s in hospital just now.’
    ‘So give him a call.’
    ‘Yes, all right, Meyer.’ Lying in bed, with his eyes crossing, would not, it suddenly occurred to me, greatly interfere with Meyer’s own telephone activity.
    ‘What is it? You have some problem?’
    ‘Weizmann’s last memo. It’s very fragmentary and complicated.’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Well, that’s the problem. I’m thinking about it.’
    ‘Can I help?’
    ‘It’s the last week of his life. He is saying strange, disjointed things. I don’t understand them.’
    He was silent a moment. ‘So maybe I can. Come over here. That guy will bring you.’
    I put the papers together, and Ze’ev ran me there.
    It was really a very beautiful house. The contrast between its impatient occupant and the building’s own unhurried harmony, the natural wood and stone and the several dozen fine pictures,was very striking; not more so, of course, than the many striking contrasts in the character of the occupant, whose taste it faithfully reflected. He had a splendid study in it, but his preferred place of work was a collapsible card table on the landing. There was a phone on this table, and another on a chair alongside. I took the phone off the chair and sat down. He was in a dressing gown of subdued blue stripes; natty as ever.
    ‘ Nu? ’
    I