like a housewife with spilt milk. “Wait a few minutes and you can have another go, dear. Don’t worry about a thing. I often get ’em like that, you know. Quite a turn-on, eh?”
She came from Wales. You could hear it in her voice, the faint ring of the valleys still there beneath the glottal stops of the London basin. “You’re all right in spite of everything,” she assured me as she squatted on the bidet in the corner of the room after it was all over. “Can’t be much fun for you, can it? Your parents the same, are they? What are they, circus or something?”
“No, they’re not. They’re normal.”
She nodded, toweling herself between the legs. “Must make it worse. My brother’s got a harelip. They say that’s the same. Genetic. Come on, get your things on. I’ve got to get back to my pitch. You’d better leave first, if you don’t mind. I don’t like to be seen going out with a client.” And then, smiling, she added, “You can come again if you like. If you know what I mean.”
“I’d like to. If you don’t mind.” If you don’t mind . I hated myself for that.
“ ’Course not. Here’s my card. You can ring in the morning and make an appointment if you like. I prefer doing it that way, in fact. There’s an answerphone if I’m not in. Leave your number and I’ll call you back.”
E VE . F ORBIDDEN F RUIT T ASTES S WEETEST .
That’s what the card said, above her number and beneath a crude line drawing of buttocks and garters. She was brisk andbusinesslike, selling wares like any other trader; not a tart with a heart, but an honest enough worker. I went to her four or five times and then had a blood test done, just in case. I was frightened, you see. Even with the condom I was frightened. I know how small viruses are.
I n 1856 the great work began: seminal, both literally and figuratively. With mathematical rigor unknown at that time outside physics, Gregor Mendel was about to demonstrate the behavior of the fundamental genetic material. He was about to elucidate the dance of genes. But what would you have seen? What does genius at work look like? A stout, obtuse figure in dusty black stumping purposefully up the hill from the monastery every morning on his way to school, and back in the afternoon when lessons are over, calling in for coffee at the Rotwang house near the Capuchin church twice a week. A round, peasant face peering at the world through gold-rimmed spectacles, smiling to himself as though at some secret joke, nodding amiably to passing acquaintances. He is part of the landscape: a mere cleric, a mere teacher leading a sequestered life that is punctuated by the ringing of bells, circumscribed by timetables and calendars, defined by routine. Genius is an elusive quality.
“Good day, Father. How are you?”
“Oh, mustn’t grumble, mustn’t grumble.”
“And the plants?”
“I find they grow on me.” A joke he has made a hundred times, apparently without being aware of repetition. He will talkfor a minute or two about the weather (a particular interest), about bees, about his pupils, and you will be expected to laugh at jokes that you don’t always understand or, if you do, don’t find particularly funny. Then: “If you’ll excuse me, I really must be going. I have to see about my children.”
Children. Sublimation, is that it? One clings to the idea eagerly. Doubtless the Blessed Sigmund Fraud (at that very moment going through his oral and anal phases in not-so-distant Freiburg, now Přibor) would have dismissed it thus. But what does the word explain? Objectively, it was certainly obsession. Mendel took two years merely to prepare the ground and a further eight years to carry out the work. Beginning with thirty-four different varieties of pea, he narrowed it down to twenty-two, and finally settled on seven strains with clearly contrasting characters: angular peas against round peas; yellow cotyledons 1 against green cotyledons; white seed coat and flower
She came from Wales. You could hear it in her voice, the faint ring of the valleys still there beneath the glottal stops of the London basin. “You’re all right in spite of everything,” she assured me as she squatted on the bidet in the corner of the room after it was all over. “Can’t be much fun for you, can it? Your parents the same, are they? What are they, circus or something?”
“No, they’re not. They’re normal.”
She nodded, toweling herself between the legs. “Must make it worse. My brother’s got a harelip. They say that’s the same. Genetic. Come on, get your things on. I’ve got to get back to my pitch. You’d better leave first, if you don’t mind. I don’t like to be seen going out with a client.” And then, smiling, she added, “You can come again if you like. If you know what I mean.”
“I’d like to. If you don’t mind.” If you don’t mind . I hated myself for that.
“ ’Course not. Here’s my card. You can ring in the morning and make an appointment if you like. I prefer doing it that way, in fact. There’s an answerphone if I’m not in. Leave your number and I’ll call you back.”
E VE . F ORBIDDEN F RUIT T ASTES S WEETEST .
That’s what the card said, above her number and beneath a crude line drawing of buttocks and garters. She was brisk andbusinesslike, selling wares like any other trader; not a tart with a heart, but an honest enough worker. I went to her four or five times and then had a blood test done, just in case. I was frightened, you see. Even with the condom I was frightened. I know how small viruses are.
I n 1856 the great work began: seminal, both literally and figuratively. With mathematical rigor unknown at that time outside physics, Gregor Mendel was about to demonstrate the behavior of the fundamental genetic material. He was about to elucidate the dance of genes. But what would you have seen? What does genius at work look like? A stout, obtuse figure in dusty black stumping purposefully up the hill from the monastery every morning on his way to school, and back in the afternoon when lessons are over, calling in for coffee at the Rotwang house near the Capuchin church twice a week. A round, peasant face peering at the world through gold-rimmed spectacles, smiling to himself as though at some secret joke, nodding amiably to passing acquaintances. He is part of the landscape: a mere cleric, a mere teacher leading a sequestered life that is punctuated by the ringing of bells, circumscribed by timetables and calendars, defined by routine. Genius is an elusive quality.
“Good day, Father. How are you?”
“Oh, mustn’t grumble, mustn’t grumble.”
“And the plants?”
“I find they grow on me.” A joke he has made a hundred times, apparently without being aware of repetition. He will talkfor a minute or two about the weather (a particular interest), about bees, about his pupils, and you will be expected to laugh at jokes that you don’t always understand or, if you do, don’t find particularly funny. Then: “If you’ll excuse me, I really must be going. I have to see about my children.”
Children. Sublimation, is that it? One clings to the idea eagerly. Doubtless the Blessed Sigmund Fraud (at that very moment going through his oral and anal phases in not-so-distant Freiburg, now Přibor) would have dismissed it thus. But what does the word explain? Objectively, it was certainly obsession. Mendel took two years merely to prepare the ground and a further eight years to carry out the work. Beginning with thirty-four different varieties of pea, he narrowed it down to twenty-two, and finally settled on seven strains with clearly contrasting characters: angular peas against round peas; yellow cotyledons 1 against green cotyledons; white seed coat and flower
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