Chapter Forty Seven

White Curve

Sixteen large jars were accommodated upon the black granite surface of his balcony; their backs to the white wall and the shimmering green of Central Park. Frank hated the closed anonymity of the laboratory; his original place of work remained the cavern, and he could only work in nature, not removed from it. This much he shared with his father. However, where Oskar had concerned himself with minerals and carbon chain fuels, Frank’s chemistry was all about the mechanisms of life, and more recently, of death.

The sixteen jars contained 15 month old cultures of his cells. Developed in the nutriment they now resembled ivory babies, and for a moment Frank considered the possibility of finding a cerebral activator for each, and of somehow apportioning his current essence amongst them, so that Frank V would be a multiple. Sixteen was in fact a power of two, and so, if repeated, the growth of the number of Franks would be exponential. He would attain a million entities in only five generations. He smiled at the absurd thought. Frank had only one point of reference, and that was himself; it would be anathema to have to share, even with himself.

These sixteen potential Frank babies were all doomed to die. It was the entire point of the experiment that they should die. The virus that Frank had added to the nutriment was designed to disable the organism’s biological defence mechanisms. The virus would not kill the host; it would instead enable nature’s own products to destroy the subjects. There were of course millions of bacteria available to act as pathogens, but Frank wanted to maximise the efficacy of his virus, so it was his aim to employ the most common agents to bring about Spong’s miserable end. In fact Frank had named his virus after its primary target, and was now ready to infect them with sixteen everyday inconveniences. He retired to the kitchen and some excellent Jamaican coffee where he intended to finalise his choice of common communicable diseases. He had the first scalding sip in his mouth and the American Dictionary of Infectious Diseases in his hands when the intercom announced a visitor.

Helen entered the apartment the way a rainbow enters the space between the clouds and the sodden earth. She materialised, and it was almost impossible to tell where she touched the ground, but her presence brought joy even to Frank’s Nordic soul. The bottle of Bushmills was firmly grounded on the table and followed by a packet of Chesterfield cigarettes and a sheaf of papers.

“Look at this Frank; just take one look at this! We have really made it big now!”

Frank gently prised the cigarettes from beneath the papers and lit up. “We?”

“We, yes we: Jack and Ellsworth and Robert; even that Stella guy. Everything Robert says about the future of art; that it’s real and in four dimensions. MOMA are going to put us right out there: Sixteen Americans. Just read it Frank.”

Helen collected two heavy glasses and filled them generously while Frank took his mind from microbiology and focussed on the words before him. It was a press release for a forthcoming exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. Helen was not to be shown, but many of her circle were, including Jack, Robert and Ellsworth. Frank thought of Jack and then, of course, of Spong. The pages were snatched from his hands.

“Just listen to this: an unusually fresh, richly varied, vigorous and youthful character. They love us Frank. Nous sommes arrivés, as they say back where you come from.”

“That’s not Norwegian, but I get the idea. So how does Ellsworth feel about this?”

“You can ask him yourself, there’s a big press party going on right now: everyone is there, you can....can...” Helen’s speech was cut off by a sneeze which exploded into a paper towel “ask him yourself”. Helen looked around for the garbage can, but Frank offered his thin fingers.

“I’ll look after that. Give me a minute and we’ll go down there, it should be entertaining”. He left her with the whiskey and went out to the balcony. It was neither scientific nor rational, but Frank had sixteen samples, it didn’t matter if one were to be compromised. The virus was in a sealed dish and he extracted 10 ml in a syringe. He opened the stopper of the fifteenth jar and pushed the tissue down into the nutriment and injected the virus.

“What the Fuck is that?” Helen was standing by the glass door, staring at the line of jars.

“It’s an experiment.... with forms. They are just models”

Helen, shaken by the ivory babies, clutched to the offered idea. “Sculpture, that’s so fucking European. I suppose it’s to do with the war, or the cold. Let’s get out of here and have some fun!”

Frank was rather dreading meeting Jack again. He had only one heart to break, and Jack had broken it. Spong would definitely be there however, and that would give him something to focus his hopes and his hate upon. He took Helen’s hand in his and their shared rainbow descended in the elevator towards the pot of gold, the cauldron of his mighty vengeance about to be realised.