Prizes (39 page)

“Well, I’m willing to go to Washington,” Anya offered cheerily.

“Don’t worry,” Mason reassured her. “They’re finally starting to clear up the logjam. And besides, we’ve got two full-time lobbyists doing a slightly subtler imitation
of John Rock. Anyway, this won’t be a very controversial call—”

“And more important,” Adam interrupted, “Anya’s going to sit down and study for her qualifying exams. I’ve always wanted to be married to a doctor.”

It took six months for Mason to achieve Washington’s blessing, and by then Anya had already passed her examination.

Thus, when the good news was phoned through by one of Clarke-Albertson’s “men on the spot,” the toasts could be raised to “Dr. Coopersmith and Dr. Coopersmith.”

Before they had even received their first advance from Clarke-Albertson, Adam and Anya decided to spend it on a house.

They purchased one of the stateliest homes on Brattle Street, a stone’s throw from the poet Longfellow’s house. Clarke-Albertson provided the down payment and guaranteed the mortgage.

Unfortunately, the plumbing and electricity were as venerable as the building itself. And since vintage pipes and wires do not improve with age, they had to engage a specialist architect to perform, as Adam jokingly put it, “a circuit transplant.”

Anya, with irrepressible optimism, insisted upon designating a room for Heather, and planned to have Adam invite her over to choose the color scheme.

They also spent many hours in the kitchen. The original pretext was that Anya could teach the young girl Russian cooking. But the recipes just gave them something to do with their hands while they conversed in increasingly intimate terms. Exchanging their feelings about life, love, marriage, Adam, and—inevitably—Toni.

“You know, I’m not trying to take your mother’s place,” Anya commented affectionately, “but I want you
to feel that this is your home too. And you needn’t wait for your allotted time to come over.” She paused. “In fact, Adam and I thought you might like to have this.”

She reached into her apron pocket and withdrew a newly made front-door key. Offering it, she added, “You don’t even have to call to say you’re coming.”

The young girl was deeply touched. “I’d like very much to give you a big hug,” she said shyly.

“Darling,” the older woman answered lovingly, “the feeling is mutual.”

But not long after the Coopersmiths had bought their mansion, Adam shocked his wife and himself by proposing that they take a sabbatical.

“And do what, Adam?” Anya asked. “The lab is your life.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” he replied. “Why don’t we actually take that long holiday we’ve been promising ourselves?”

“Where would you like to go?” she asked, delighted at Adam’s rush of enthusiasm.

“Actually, a distant star would be perfect,” he replied with a smile. “But since we’re not qualified astronauts, would you settle for a trip around the world?”

“That would be wonderful,” she enthused. “Do you want to start westward or eastward?”

“I was thinking of west,” Adam answered. “We could stop in California and see some of our colleagues. Then Hawaii. After that, we’ll play it by ear. I’ve got some long-standing invitations to lecture down under, and that might even make it tax deductible for Uncle Sam. But in any case, we’ll definitely visit your parents on the way home.”

Anya was thrilled. And they embraced warmly.

“Tell me,” he asked, “aren’t we the happiest couple in the world?”

“I think so,” she murmured. “But we could find out empirically when we travel.”

Unselfishly, Heather encouraged them. “You guys deserve some time by yourselves. I mean, even old people go on honeymoons, don’t they?”

Adam and Anya laughed at what they hoped was meant to be a joke, and then he asked seriously, “But if we go, what’ll happen to you on our weekends?”

“Well, something tells me Mom’ll let you make up the time when you get back. And if she’s so horny that she has to go to Washington while you’re gone, I can always stay with Auntie Lisl.”

“From what I understand,” Anya remarked, “I don’t think Toni likes her very much.”

“Yeah, most of the time,” Heather conceded. “But when it comes to a place to dump me, I’m sure she’ll make an exception.”

41
 

Greg Morgenstern’s laboratory staff had burgeoned to thirty and was subdivided into groups working on different aspects of the problem. But, of course, he placed his highest hopes on Sandy, whose capacity to solve the mysteries of cellular behavior was the greatest he had ever seen.

As they came closer and closer to finding the long-elusive protein that would provide the ultimate solution, both men verged on the monomaniacal. Greg did not even take into account that many of the hours Sandy
spent in the lab were the rightful property of Judy and little Olivia. Neither had been the best of family men.

Yet Sandy Raven’s personal loss was his professional gain.

Late one night when he was all alone in the lab, he discovered the golden fleece—the molecular structure of the anticancer virus that he, Greg, and their teams of biologists and crystallographers had spent years seeking to replicate. And it was there in glorious Technicolor on his monitor.

Sandy was ecstatic—at once elated and exhausted. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, before broadcasting the news to the world he wanted to savor the delicious taste of being the only man on earth to know one of God’s secrets.

He walked into the deserted coffee lounge, opened the Frigidaire, pulled out a small green Perrier bottle, twisted the cap, and poured the liquid into a glass.

Giddy with excitement compounded by his solitude, he toasted himself out loud: “To Sandy Raven, the first man in his Bronx Science class to win a Nobel Prize.”

“Amen,” said a voice.

Startled, Sandy whirled around. It was his father-in-law.

“My God, Greg, I thought you’d be asleep at this hour.”

“No,” his mentor answered. “I had this uncanny feeling that we were getting close. I woke up and was drawn back here like a magnet.”

“We’ve done it!” Sandy suddenly exploded. “I’ve got the answer right here.”

Morgenstern was thunderstruck. He seemed temporarily paralyzed by the shock. Then, finally, he managed a breathless, “Show me.”

They raced to Sandy’s lab station, where the computer still glimmered with its victorious construct and his lab book lay open at the page when the writing had come to a complete, unexpected, and triumphal end.

For a minute or so the older man was speechless, his eyes darting frantically from the page to the screen and back again.

The two men embraced.

“I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it,” Greg murmured. He turned to his son-in-law and said, “Go home and wake Judy. I’ll just read through these last few days of notes and call Ruth.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “Oh Sandy, you can’t imagine how I’ve dreamed of this moment.”

“I can, Greg. I can. This is like being on top of Mount Everest.”

The rest of the day dissolved into a blur. After waking Judy and, as an inevitable result, three-year-old Olivia, Sandy was too excited to go to sleep. His wife was so elated she opened her heart and said everything this victory meant to her.

“Oh God, I’m so happy about Daddy. My whole life, people have told me that he was the smartest guy they’d ever met, but that his only fault was being too noble to fight for all the recognition he deserved. And now, like it or lump it, he’s going to be famous.”

“Hey,” Sandy protested, “what about me? I wasn’t exactly the office boy in all this.”

“Oh, you’re
my
special prize,” Judy bubbled affectionately. “Now we’ll get you back. It’s like the end of a long, hard war. The troops—even generals like you and Daddy—come marching home to their families.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Sandy acknowledged. “I’ve been sort of delinquent. But as soon as we tie up the loose ends, we’ll go away for a while.”

The long evening of festivities began at five
P.M.
as champagne corks popped in Gregory Morgenstern’s lab. This time some of the neighboring dignitaries came to drink to
him.
Professor Baltimore was there, as well as
Har Grobind Khorana. And the long-emeritus Salvador Luria.

Greg was forced to make a speech. But with characteristic modesty, he downplayed his own role.

“This is a team effort,” he began, “and a team victory. And if it means the beginning of the end of one of the cruelest diseases ever to afflict man, then all of you should feel as gratified as I.”

Then it was down to the waiting taxi that sped them, with Judy and Ruth, to the Ritz-Carlton to continue the effervescence
en famille.

The aristocratic diners could not fathom the cause for the loud laughter and jubilation. They simply came to the most obvious conclusion—that these plebeians were from out of town.

“And now my fellow inebriates,” Greg announced, with a perceptible slur in his voice, “I’m gonna share with you—and
only
you—the cherry on the sundae.” He put his finger melodramatically to his lips and uttered in a stage whisper, “Shh!”

They all leaned forward as he murmured confidentially, “Guess when the news is being published?”

“Oh, that’s an easy one,” Sandy volunteered, also mumbling slightly. “It’ll take us about two hours to write it up—”

“Two hours?” Judy queried with astonishment. “Is that all?”

“Yeah, honey,” Sandy smiled. “It’s a piece of cake it’s so simple. The computer can practically do it on its own. The hard part was all the years that came before. Anyway, as soon as we knock off the draft, we’ll call the editors of
Cell
,
Science
, and
Nature
and see who begs the most. I’d say the best offer is gonna be less than three weeks to publication.”

“An excellent hypothesis, Dr. Raven,” Greg pontificated tipsily. “That’s what would’ve happened in the normal run of things. But my special surprise is …” He
took a dramatic pause and concluded, “…  the paper’s already in the press.”

Naturally the others did not take this literally. But something about Greg’s tone made Sandy uneasy.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well,” Greg responded grandiosely, “you would all agree that
Nature
is the most prestigious journal in our profession. Watson and Crick used it to announce the cracking of the genetic code. And, as you know, it’s published weekly in London.

“What’s more, Marcus Williams, the current editor, happens to be one of my former research fellows. When I called him this morning, he was in his office going over the latest proofs. But he was so happy for me—for all of us—that he held everything while I scribbled out a few pages and faxed them. He not only dispensed with the normal refereeing, but rammed it into
this week’s
issue. It’ll be in every lab in America by Wednesday.”

“Wrong,” Sandy interrupted. “In every lab in the
world.
”

In the days that followed, Sandy walked on air.

On Wednesday morning he fell to earth with a thud.

Arriving at the lab earlier than he had since the Great Breakthrough, Sandy was not surprised to find a cluster of staffers crowded around what he assumed to be a copy of
Nature.
The huddle was so large, it was impossible for him to see.

Just then Rudi Reinhardt, one of their star biochemists from Munich, noticed him and called out, “Hey, Sandy, can you believe this?”

“What’re you talking about?”

The German’s expression abruptly changed to one of concern. “You mean, you don’t get your own copy of
Nature
?”

“Sure,” Sandy replied. “I was just gonna amble over
to my mailbox and see what’s new in the world of science.”

“Then prepare yourself for a shock,” Rudi answered sympathetically, holding out the publication to him. “It turns out that our humble prof is a closet egomaniac.”

Sandy suddenly grew cold and the hairs on the back of his neck began to bristle. He grabbed the magazine, which was already turned to “An Antibody for Some Hepatic Oncogenes.”

The listed author was Gregory Morgenstern, Department of Microbiology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.