Mendel's Dwarf (46 page)

At ten o’clock I went into my office and phoned the clinic. I remember the time largely because I had been watching the hands on a wall clock in the lab, largely because I didn’t know what to do, and was wondering when to do it. So at ten o’clock I phoned the clinic.

The glossy tones of the retail trade answered, “Hewison Fertility. Can I help you?” But when the receptionist heard who was calling, the tone changed from cheerful optimism. By now they all knew the stunted, the remarkable Benedict Lambert. By now they all understood that congenital disaster was going to stalk the hushed corridors of the clinic for as long as the Miller case remained unresolved. There was a brief burst of soothing music in my ear, and then another, more senior voice was there assuring me that Mrs. Miller was still quite comfortable. No, there wasn’t any change in her condition, but she was quite comfortable. The new voice used that word
stable
. “In fact, Mr. Miller has just this minute gone to see her. Would you like me to put you through to her room?”

And it was only then that some kind of dim understanding broke through, perhaps like the first glimmer of doubt that crept into the mind of the obstetrician when she held me, proto-Benedict, bloodied and bowed, aloft between my mother’s splayed legs. “It’s a lovely little boy.” But doubt stirring deep down there among the cheerful optimism of birth—that those limbs were altogether too short, that head too swollen, the bridge of the nose too depressed—the merest, deepest flicker of disquiet, the faint concern that all was not right. “Yes,” I said to the woman on the telephone. “Yes, please put me through. Quickly …”

He stood at the bedside, doubtless aware of the press of time, the urgency of the moment. The telephone burbled softly, but of course he didn’t answer it. Maybe it spurred him to act. He
turned to the baby’s cot and peered down at the dark head, at the clasped eyes and the single, clenched fist, while the piano played On the Overgrown Path with a sudden arpeggio, then a thoughtful melody, then the arpeggio repeated once more—the cry of the barn owl, for the barn owl has not flown away; although it soon will. Hugo Miller set to work. From Mendel to the future: the tenuous chain of descent, the passage of DNA down the generations, was soon broken.

I suppose that at that moment I was struggling out into the forecourt of the Institute. It was pouring with rain. Watch: a dwarf, panicking through puddles.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the help of Dr. Josef Jiricny of Zurich University and Patricia Novelli of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. They both gave much assistance with technical aspects of molecular biology. Any errors are, of course, the fault of Benedict Lambert.

SIMON MAWER is the author of the national best sellers
Trapeze
and
The Glass Room
, which was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
Mendel’s Dwarf
is an earlier novel that was named a New York Times Notable Book and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award when it was first published. Mawer’s other novels include
The Fall
(winner of the Boardman Tasker Prize) and
The Gospel of Judas
. English by birth, he has made Italy his home for more than thirty years.
www.simonmawer.com