Manu Joseph - Serious Men

‘Dr Acharya,’ Oparna tried one more time.

He leaned back in his chair and observed her in a peaceful way. He liked her. She had done reasonable research in South America on the private lives of earth microbes that survived in almost extraterrestrial conditions. She was fresh and bright, and she knew all that she had to know. He preferred the intelligence of women, which was somehow subdued and efficient, to the brilliance of men, which often came across as a deformity.

He rubbed his hands and said, ‘So, Oparna. Good. What took you so long?’ She tried not to react. He looked at the door and maintained a long comfortable silence.

Oparna probed softly, ‘You called me?’

‘Yes, I did,’ he said. ‘Just wanted to know how the lab is shaping up. Everything OK?’

She thought there was something high maintenance about his face. His teeth were so clean and nothing was peeping out through his nose at all. Extraordinary for an Indian male of his age. The same force that sent the orchids must be maintaining him.

‘Yes, everything is OK,’ she said. ‘But, Dr Acharya, you had mentioned that the basement was a temporary arrangement.’

‘I remember. It’d be nice if the astrobiology lab is above sea-level. It’s a shame. I know, I know. I called you actually to give the bad news. There is no space. The lab needs a large sprawling area and we simply don’t have room anywhere, it seems, but in the basement.’

He stood up. He was probably over six foot two. The enormous black chair shuddered in relief. He steered his trousers around his waist. ‘Let’s go to your lab,’ he said, and dashed out. In the anteroom, he wagged a finger at Ayyan Mani asking him to follow.

The three walked down the interminable corridor. The woody sound of Oparna’s heels was still so alien to the Institute, which was used to the unremarkable silence of men, that Acharya looked back at her and at her feet. She smiled meekly and tried to walk softly. That made her feel stupid, and, for a moment, angry with herself. She was not accustomed to being servile and she wondered why she was so in the presence of this man. She had heard all the famous stories about him. Of his newsworthy rage and tragic brilliance. But she could not accept that this was the way it was going to be between them. She walked faster to keep up with him, and thought of something friendly to say, something equal. ‘This corridor is endless,’ she said.

‘That’s not true,’ he told her.

They took the lift to the basement and from there they walked through a network of narrow corridors flanked by stark white walls and in the ghostly hums of invisible subterranean machines. At the end of a corridor was a door that said ‘Astrobiology’.

It was a huge hollow room. Unopened cartons lay piled up in heaps. The walls were newly painted off-white. And there was this smell of fresh paint. In a far corner was a large ancient desk, with just a phone on it. A wooden chair was by its side.

‘This is what happens when the equipment comes before the carpenter,’ Acharya said cheerfully, and his voice echoed. ‘Oparna, you deal directly with my secretary. He will get you anything you want. Except, of course, windows.’ And he left the room walking away like a tusker.

Ayyan Mani took out a small scribbling-pad from his trouser pocket, poised a pen over it and stared expectantly at Oparna.

‘What are your instructions, Madam?’ he asked. He liked her smell. He wondered how a woman could smell like a lemon, yet seem so unattainable.

She thought he smelled exactly like a room freshener. But at least he didn’t stink like other men. For a fleeting moment, she remembered a friend who went through an insane phase of sleeping only with poor men, really poor chaps. Like drivers and peons. Just to see if they were any different in bed from the MBAs.

Ayyan looked at her back as she walked into the expanse of the almost empty lab and put her hands on her hips. Those hips curved so beautifully. Even in the intentional modesty of the salwar kameez, he could see how perfectly sculpted she was. He wondered how she would look naked. He tried to imagine her face as he plundered her in the bushes of Aksa.

‘I think I will see the plans first and send you a detailed list of things to be done,’ she said, without turning. ‘I hope you will move fast. I hear you are a very efficient man.’

‘I am just a small man, Madam,’ he said. ‘A small man who manages this and that sometimes.’

‘That’s not what I’ve heard,’ she said, walking towards him and attempting a calculated smile.

‘What am I, Madam, in front of scientists like you?’ he said. ‘It is through the great things you people do that I learn a little here, a little there.’

‘OK then,’ she said exhaling loudly. ‘I will see you soon.’

When he was at the door, he said, ‘It’s so hot here.’ He walked briskly to a corner and turned on the AC. ‘Madam,’ he said softly, ‘can you tell me something about the Balloon Mission?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Every night I make up a science story for my son. That’s how I put him to sleep. All my material comes from the Institute.’

‘That’s sweet,’ she said with a chuckle. (Ayyan, of course, knew it was very sweet.)

‘How old is he?’

‘He is ten.’

‘I don’t know how much you know,’ she said, ‘but it’s like this. Twenty thousand meteorites hit Earth’s atmosphere every year. They are so small that they burn up immediately. Dr Acharya believes that some of them carry extraterrestrial living matter, like an alien DNA or even fully formed microbes or something entirely unknown to man. These things survive their entry into Earth and take a while to come down. We are going to send a balloon high above the Earth. The balloon will carry four samplers. Samplers are sterilized steel cans that will be controlled by remote from the ground. They will open at the height of forty-one kilometres, capture air, and shut immediately. I will study the samplers after we bring them back down. I’ll study them right here where we are standing.’

‘What if you find something?’

‘Then Dr Acharya becomes the first person to find living matter from outer space.’

‘Why forty-one kilometres above the Earth? Why not twenty, or ten?’ he asked, narrowing his eyes to show curiosity — though he knew why.

‘Because, because,’ she said, with mild appreciation, ‘nothing from Earth floats to that height. Even volcanic ash does not go up that high. So if we find, say, a bacterium at that height, it will mean that he was coming down, not going up.’

‘It’s so interesting what you people do,’ he said. ‘I think I can cook up a great story for my son tonight.’

As he walked to the door, Oparna asked, ‘What do you know about the Giant Ear?’

‘Nothing that you don’t know, Madam,’ he said, walking a few steps back in. Giant Ear was the name given to thirty radio telescopes, a vast array of mammoth dishes pointed at the sky. One after the other, they stood like white monsters on vast farms, about a hundred kilometres from the city. ‘Have you seen them?’ he asked. ‘They belong to the Institute.’

‘I saw them once when I was driving past,’ she said. ‘They look beautiful, and evil.’

‘There is one strange thing about the Giant Ear,’ Ayyan said softly. ‘You won’t find a single champagne bottle there.’ (The way he pronounced ‘champagne’ was a bit funny but she did not react. She was more intrigued by what he had said.)

‘Champagne bottle, you said? There is no champagne bottle inside the Giant Ear. Why should that be strange?’

‘Madam, every radio telescope in the world keeps a champagne bottle. It is a tradition. The bottle has to be opened when there is a contact with an alien signal.’